“Havoc!” Call called again, louder. “Havoc, we’re home! You can come back now!”

He whirled around, but the wolf didn’t come out of the bushes, didn’t emerge from the shadows that were starting to gather between the trees.

It was getting late.

Call’s father came up behind him. He looked at the torn rope and the open door and sighed, raking a hand through his gray-black hair. “Call,” he said gently. “Call, it’s gone. Your wolf’s gone.”

“You don’t know that!” Call shouted, spinning to face Alastair.

“Call —”

“You always hated Havoc!” Call snapped. “You’re probably glad he’s gone.”

Alastair’s expression hardened. “I’m not glad you’re upset, Call. But yes, that wolf was never meant to be a pet. It might have killed or really hurt someone. One of your friends or, God forbid, you. I just hope it runs off into the woods and doesn’t head into town to start snacking on the neighbors.”

“Shut up!” Call told him, although there was something vaguely comforting about the idea that if Havoc ate someone, Call might be able to find him in the commotion. Call pushed that thought firmly out of his mind, consigning it into the Evil Overlord column.

Thoughts like that didn’t help anything. He had to find Havoc before awful stuff happened. “Havoc’s never hurt anyone,” he said instead.

“I’m sorry, Call,” Alastair said. To Call’s surprise, he sounded sincere. “I know you’ve wanted a pet for a long time. Maybe if I’d let you keep that mole rat …” He sighed again. Call wondered if his dad had kept him from having a pet because Evil Overlords shouldn’t have pets. Because Evil Overlords didn’t love anything, especially not innocent things, like animals. Like Havoc.

Call imagined how scared Havoc had to be — he hadn’t been on his own since Call had found him as a puppy.

“Please,” Call begged. “Please help me look for Havoc.”

Alastair nodded once, a sharp jerk of his jaw. “Get in the car. We can call for him as we take a slow drive around the block. He might not have gotten far.”

“Okay,” Call said. He looked back toward the garage, feeling as though he was overlooking something, as though he’d see his wolf, if he just stared hard enough.

But no matter how many times they went around the block and no matter how many times they called, Havoc didn’t come out. It got darker and darker and they went home. Alastair made spaghetti for dinner, but Call couldn’t force any of it down. He got Alastair to promise to help make LOST DOG posters for Havoc the next day, even though Alastair believed a picture of Havoc would do more harm than good.

“Chaos-ridden animals aren’t meant to be pets, Callum,” Alastair said after clearing away Call’s untouched plate. “They don’t care about people. They can’t.”

Call didn’t say anything to that, but he went to bed with a lump in his throat and a feeling of dread.

A high-pitched whining noise roused Call out of a restless sleep. He shot upright in bed, grabbing for Miri, the knife he always kept on his nightstand. He slid his legs off the bed, wincing as his feet touched the cold floor.

“Havoc?” he whispered.

He thought he heard another whine, distant. He peered out the window but all he could see were shadowy trees and darkness.

He slipped out into the hallway. His dad’s bedroom door was shut and the line between it and the floor was dark. Though he could still be awake, Call knew. Sometimes Alastair stayed up all night fixing things in his workshop downstairs.

“Havoc?” Call whispered again.

There was no answering noise, but gooseflesh spiraled up Call’s arms. He could feel that his wolf was nearby, that Havoc was anxious, was scared. Call moved in the direction of the feeling, though he couldn’t explain it. It led him down the hall to the top of the cellar stairs. Call swallowed hard, gripped Miri, and started to descend.

He’d always been a little creeped out by the basement, which was full of old auto parts, broken furniture, dollhouses, dolls that needed repairing, and antique tin toys that sometimes whirred to life.

A bar of yellow light peeked out from under the doorway that led through to another of Alastair’s storage rooms, full of even more junk he hadn’t gotten around to fixing yet. Call gathered his courage and limped across the room, pushing the door open.

It didn’t budge. His father had locked it.

Call’s heart sped.

There was no reason for his dad to lock away a bunch of old, half-repaired stuff. No reason at all.

“Dad?” Call called through the door, wondering if Alastair was in there for some reason.

But he heard something very different stir on the other side. Fury rose up in him, terrible and choking. He took his little knife and tried to press it into the gap on the door, tried to push back the bolt.

After a tense moment, the tip of Miri pressed the right place and the lock sprung. The door opened.

The back of the cellar was no longer the way Call remembered it. The clutter had been removed, leaving space for what looked like a very spare mage’s office. A desk stood in one corner, piles of old and new books surrounding it. There was a cot in the other. And in the center of the floor, bound by shackles and gagged with a horrible-looking leather muzzle, was Havoc.

The wolf lunged toward Call, whining, only to be snapped back by his chains. Call sank to his knees, fingers ruffling Havoc’s fur as he felt for the release on the collar. He was so happy to see Havoc and so overwhelmed with rage at what his father had done that for a moment he missed the most important detail.

But as he scanned the room for where Alastair kept the key, he finally saw what he should have noticed first.

The cot against the far wall had shackles attached to it as well.

Shackles just the right size for a boy who was about to turn thirteen.

CALL COULDN’T STOP staring at the shackles. His heart felt like it was too small in his chest, desperately pumping away without making the blood move in his veins. The shackles were forged out of iron, inscribed with alchemical symbols, obvious mage-work, sunk deep into the wall behind them. Once they were clapped on, it would be impossible to get free….

Behind Call, Havoc made a whimpering sound. Call forced himself to look away, to concentrate on freeing his wolf. The muzzle was easy to get off, but the moment he did so, Havoc started barking wildly, as though trying to tell Call the story of how he’d wound up chained in the basement.

“Shhhhhh,” Call said, grabbing Havoc’s nose in panic, trying to keep him quiet. “Don’t wake up Dad.”

Havoc whimpered as Call tried to pull himself together. The floor of the storage room was concrete, and Call reached down into it for a jolt of earth magic to break the wolf’s chains. The earth magic, when it came, felt weak: Call’s concentration was all over the place and he knew it. He just couldn’t believe his father would pretend to be sorry about Havoc being missing and drive him around, letting him call for Havoc when he knew the whole time where he was, after he had chained him in the basement.

Except he couldn’t have chained Havoc in the basement himself. He’d been with Call the whole time. So someone else must have done it. A friend of his father’s? Call’s mind whirled. Alastair didn’t have any friends.