Havoc turned and padded away. Call began to carefully back out after his wolf.

“No! You can’t go!” Alastair lunged for Call, grabbing his arm. His father wasn’t a big man, but he was lean and long and wiry. Call slipped and went down hard on the concrete, landing the wrong way on his leg. Pain shot up his body, making his vision swim. Over Havoc’s barking, Call heard his father saying, “You can’t go back to the Magisterium. I have to fix this. I promise you I will fix it —”

He means he’s going to kill me, Call thought. He means I’ll be fixed when I’m dead.

Fury overcame him, fury at all the lies Alastair had told and was telling even now, at the cold knot of dread he’d been carrying around since Master Joseph had told him who he truly was, at the thought that everyone he cared about might hate him if they knew.

Rage poured out of him. The wall behind Alastair cracked suddenly, a fissure traveling up the side of it, and everything in the room began to move. Alastair’s desk went flying into one wall. The cot exploded toward the ceiling. Alastair looked around, stunned, just as Call sent the magic toward him. Alastair flew up into the air and hit the broken wall, his head making an awful thudding sound before his entire body slumped to the ground.

Call stood up shakily. His father was unconscious, unmoving, his eyes closed. He crept a little closer and stared. His father’s chest was still rising and falling. He was still breathing.

Letting your rage get so out of control that you knocked out your father with magic definitely went in the bad column of the Evil Overlord list.

Call knew he had to get out of the house before Alastair woke up. He staggered out of the room, pushing the door closed behind him, Havoc at his heels.

In the main basement there was a wooden chest full of puzzles and old board games with missing pieces sitting to one side of an odd assemblage of broken chairs. Call shoved it in front of the storage room door. At least that would slow down Alastair, Call thought, as he made his way up the steps.

He darted into his bedroom and threw on a jacket over his pajamas, shoving his feet into sneakers. Havoc pranced around him, barking softly, as he stuffed a canvas duffel bag with some random extra clothes, then went into the kitchen and grabbed a bunch of chips and cookies. He emptied out the tin box on top of the fridge where Alastair kept the grocery money — about forty dollars in crumpled ones and fives. He shoved it into the bag, sheathed Miri, and dropped the knife on top of his other belongings before zipping everything up.

He hoisted the bag up on his shoulder. His leg was aching and he felt shaky from the fall and the recoil of the magic that was still echoing through his body. The moonlight pouring in through the windows lit up everything in the room with white edging. Call stared around, wondering if he’d ever see the kitchen again, or the house, or his father.

Havoc gave a whine, his ear cocked. Call couldn’t hear anything, but that didn’t mean Alastair wasn’t waking up. Call shoved down his wayward thoughts, grabbed Havoc by the ruff, and crept quietly out of the house.

The streets of the town were empty in early-morning darkness but Call stuck to the shadows anyway, in case Alastair decided to drive around looking for him. The sun would be rising soon.

About twenty minutes into his escape, his phone rang. He nearly leaped out of his skin before he managed to silence it.

The caller ID said it was coming from the house. Alastair was definitely awake and had made it out of the basement. The relief Call felt quickly turned to fresh fear. Alastair called again. And again.

Call turned off his phone and threw it away, in case his dad could trace his whereabouts through it like detectives did on TV.

He needed to decide where he was headed — and fast. Classes at the Magisterium didn’t start for two weeks, but there was always someone around. He was sure Master Rufus would let him bunk down in his old room until Tamara and Aaron showed up — and would protect him from his father, if it came to that.