I’m definitely alone, Call thought. Alex was worse than no help at all. But Alex just grinned at him across the table in a not-pleasant way.

“We’ll get right on it tomorrow,” Alex said.

After dinner, Tamara and Jasper spilled into Call’s bedroom to swap information about their days. Master Joseph had been teaching them how to form solid and unbreakable surfaces out of air and water.

But as Call had begun to realize after meeting Jeffrey, they weren’t the only ones being taught. There were other mages, with other groups. Hugo taught ten younger students, and Tamara and Jasper had spotted at least four other apprentice groups — apprentice groups larger than the ones allowed at the Magisterium. Jeffrey was probably teaching, too.

“He wouldn’t let us make sharp things, though,” Jasper said. “Though I guess that makes sense. He doesn’t want us armed. We figured out there’s some kind of air elemental forming the protections around the Alkahest — like a guardian.” He forced a smile. “But that’s okay. We’ll figure out a way around it.”

“What about you, Call?” Tamara looked at him anxiously. “Was it really bad?”

Call paused near the bookshelf. On it were rows and rows of photos of Constantine and his friends. It was hard not to notice that in every one of them, Constantine was laughing at the center of a group. People were always looking at him. “It was fine,” he lied. “I’m just pretending to try anyway.”

“I’m going to try to get close to Master Joseph,” Jasper said. “Act like I am getting into his whole evil thing so that I can see if he’ll tell me stuff. After all, their whole plan can’t be to raise Aaron from the dead. That’s not enough to take over the world.”

“You think he has an army?” Call asked. “I mean, beyond the prisoners and the students. An army of Chaos-ridden?”

“Everyone thinks he’s got an army,” Jasper replied. “But we all thought the Enemy of Death was still alive, creating more and more Chaos-ridden. If the only person who can make more of them is Alex, then maybe his army isn’t that big.”

Call looked over and saw Tamara was looking at a picture on his dresser — one of his parents and Constantine.

“It’s funny to look at them,” Tamara said. “You would never know one of these apprentices was going to tear the mage world apart.”

Call glanced in the mirror. He hadn’t remembered to brush his hair that morning and there was a barbecue stain on his shirt. He didn’t look like much of a threat either, but had the uncomfortable feeling that the next few weeks were going to define his destiny.

Despite having the meeting in Call’s room, they all moved to Tamara’s to sleep. But as the others dropped off into slumber, Call found himself staring at the ceiling, his wolf cuddled up to his side. Your soul, Anastasia had said. Your restless soul was never meant to have peace.

You don’t know me, Call thought. You don’t know my soul. He rolled over and closed his eyes tightly, but it was still a long, long time before he dropped off to sleep.

ALEX MIGHT HAVE hoped for big things, but the second day went even worse than the first. Call spent half of it looking through Constantine’s notes, which had been made in neat columns that caused Call to despair of his own handwriting. If you were going to get someone’s soul, Call thought, it would be nice if you also got their superior penmanship. Constantine had written down lots of numbers, indicating experiments and then measurements, which appeared to be chaos-related. He determined the minimum energy that was required to bring back one of the Chaos-ridden and then lists of improvements you could get with more chaos and more delicate handling of the soul.

Speaking was one of them, which annoyed Alex.

But the spirit — the essence of what was missing in a person — seemed to be something Constantine hadn’t been able to define or re-create. Despite Master Joseph’s insistence that they’d been close to a breakthrough, Call didn’t see anything in the list of experiments that actually indicated this.

What Constantine had actually done was to push his own existing soul into someone else’s body. That was impressive magic and it had saved Constantine’s life, but it wasn’t bringing back the dead.

That night, at dinner, both Jasper and Tamara appeared worked up in a way that puzzled Call. They seemed to be buzzing with a weird energy, and Tamara kept shooting Significant Looks over to Call, gesturing over the homemade pasta. He had no idea what she was trying to communicate.

He thought of Anastasia’s claim that Tamara had a crush on him. When Celia had liked him, she had done lots of confusing and inexplicable things. Maybe Anastasia was right … but that still didn’t explain what Tamara wanted him to do.

“We made progress today,” Alex lied. He gazed at Master Joseph as if hoping for approval.

Master Joseph just looked at Call. “Don’t force it,” he said. “Relax. The ability is there.”

Call stared at Tamara. She was miming something to do with a cat. Cat? he mouthed at her, and she nodded, then mimed brushing her hair. Call was flummoxed. There was a cat in the house and she wanted him to brush it? Call liked cats, but Havoc regarded them as more of a delicacy. No cat would sit still to be brushed around a giant, Chaos-ridden wolf. What was Tamara thinking?

Unless it was a Chaos-ridden cat … Had Tamara found a Chaos-ridden cat?

“I really think we could make some advances,” Alex went on. “Change the way magic is done.”

He glanced at Tamara, as if he was hoping she’d be impressed. Which made Call furious. He stopped paying attention to Tamara’s gesturing and glared at Alex, wishing he could punch him.

Call was jealous. Jealous of Alex because he was the kind of boy that people liked. Call knew Tamara hated Alex for killing Aaron and even if that had never happened, she still wouldn’t like Alex, because he had made her sister cry. He knew all that, but it didn’t help.

Whether or not Tamara actually had a crush on Call, it didn’t matter. Call liked her.

He liked her and he was going to have to tell her.

“So,” said Jasper, noting the strained silence. He gestured toward the sideboard. “Anyone for that chocolate cake?”

After dinner, Jasper, still working on his plan to impress Master Joseph, asked if the older mage could show him how to create the force fields of air that barred the windows. Alex, who was an air mage, immediately offered to co-teach.

“You’re not going to be able to use this information to escape, you know,” Alex said with obvious pleasure. “It’s very advanced stuff. Besides, even if you got out of the house, you’d never make it off the island.”

“Oh no,” Jasper said. “I wasn’t thinking of trying to escape.”

Master Joseph gave him an indulgent smile. “Of course not. Come along.” He led the way to one of the practice rooms.

The moment they disappeared, Tamara grabbed Call’s hand. “Come on,” she hissed, and dragged him out of the dining room, into the parlor. She shut the door and leaned against it.

“I have to tell you something,” she said, looking around as if someone might be lurking in the shadows, spying. She was wearing another pastel dress, this one pale apricot, with a lace skirt.