“Tamara,” Aaron said. “We’re all in the same apprentice group. Give him a break. His mother died. He’s allowed to feel any way he wants about it.”

“My great-aunt died there, too,” Celia said. “My parents talk about her all the time, but I never knew her. I’m not mad at you, Call. I just wish it didn’t happen to either of us. To any of them.”

“Well, I’m mad,” said a guy in the back. Call thought his name might be Rafe. He was tall, with a thicket of curly dark hair, and he wore a T-shirt with a grinning skull on it that glowed a faint green in the dim light.

Call felt even worse. He almost said something apologetic to Celia and Rafe, until Tamara turned to Aaron and said fiercely: “But it’s like he doesn’t care. They were heroes.”

“No, they weren’t,” Call burst out, before Aaron could speak. “They were victims. They got killed because of magic, and it can’t be fixed. Not even by your Enemy of Death, right?”

There was a shocked silence. Even people who had been involved in other conversations in other parts of the bus turned around and gaped at Call.

His father had blamed the other mages for his mother’s death. And he trusted his dad. He did. But with all of their eyes on him, Call wasn’t sure what to think.

The silence was broken only by the sound of Master Rockmaple snoring. The bus had turned onto a bumpy dirt path.

Very quietly, Celia said, “I hear there are Chaos-ridden animals near the school. From the Enemy’s experiments.”

“Like horses?” Drew asked.

“I hope not,” Tamara said with a shudder. Drew looked disappointed. “You wouldn’t want a Chaos-ridden horse if you had one. Chaos-ridden creatures are the Enemy’s servants. They’ve got a piece of the void in them and it makes them smarter than other animals, but bloodthirsty and insane. Only the Enemy or one of his servants can control them.”

“So they’d be like evil-possessed zombie horses?” Drew asked.

“Not exactly. You’d know them by their eyes. Their eyes coruscate — pale, with spiraling colors inside of them — but otherwise they just look regular. That’s the scary part,” put in Gwenda. “I hope we don’t have to go outside much.”

“I do,” said Tamara. “I hope we learn how to recognize and kill them. I want to do that.”

“Oh, yeah,” Call said under his breath. “I’m the crazy one. Nothing to worry about at the ole Magisterium. Evil pony school, here we come.”

But Tamara wasn’t paying attention to him. She was leaning out from her seat, listening to Celia say, “I hear there’s a new type of Chaos-ridden where you can’t tell from the eyes. The creature doesn’t even know what it is until the Enemy makes it do what he wants. So, like, your cat could be spying on you or —”

The bus stopped with a jerk. For a second, Call thought maybe they’d gone to another gas station, but then Master Rufus rose to his feet. “We’ve arrived,” he said. “Please file off the bus in an orderly fashion.” And for a few minutes, everything was really ordinary, as if Call were just on a field trip. Kids grabbed their luggage and bags and jostled toward the front of the bus. Call got off just after Aaron and, since he didn’t have to collect any baggage, was the first one to really take a second to look around.

CHAPTER FIVE

CALL WAS STANDING in front of a sheer mountain face. To the left and right was forest, but in front of him was a set of massive double doors. They were a weathered gray color with iron hinges that turned into curved swirls, bending inward on one another. Call imagined that from a distance or without the glow of the bus headlights, they would have been nearly invisible. Carved into the rock over the doors was an unfamiliar symbol:

Beneath it were the words: Fire wants to burn, water wants to flow, air wants to rise, earth wants to bind, chaos wants to devour.

Devour. The word sent a shiver through him. Last chance to run, he thought. But he wasn’t very fast and there was nowhere to run to anyway.

The other kids had gotten their gear and were now standing around like he was. Master Rufus walked to the doors, and all of them grew quiet. Master North stepped forward.

“You are about to enter the halls of the Magisterium,” he said. “For some of you, this may be the fulfillment of a dream. For others, we hope it may be the beginning of one. To all of you, I say, the Magisterium exists here for your own safety. You have a great power, and without training, that power is dangerous. Here, we will help you to learn control and teach you about the great history of mages like yourself, dating back through time. Each of you has a unique destiny, one outside the normal path you might have walked, one you will find here. You may have guessed this when you saw the first stirrings of your power. But as you stand at the entrance to the mountain, I imagine at least a few of you are wondering just what you’ve gotten yourselves into.”

Some of the kids laughed self-consciously.

“Long ago, in the very beginning, the first mages wondered much the same thing. Intrigued by the teachings of the alchemists, particularly Paracelsus, they sought to explore elemental magic. They had limited success, until one alchemist realized that his young son was able to easily do the same exercises with which he struggled. The mages discovered that magic could be performed by those with an inborn power and was performed best by the young. After that, the mages found new students to teach and to learn from, seeking all over Europe for children with power. Very few have it, perhaps one in twenty-five thousand, but the mages gathered up those they could and began the first school of magic. Along the way, they heard stories of untrained boys and girls who had set fire to houses and burned in the flames, who had drowned in rainstorms or had been drawn up into tornados or pulled down into sinkholes. With teaching, the mages learned to walk through lava unscathed, to explore the deepest parts of the sea without an oxygen tank, even to fly.”

Something inside Call leaped at what Master North was saying. He remembered being very small and asking his father to swing him through the air, but his dad wouldn’t and told him to stop pretending. Could he really learn how to fly?

If you could fly, whispered a small, treacherous part of his brain, it wouldn’t matter so much that you can’t run.

“Here, you will encounter elementals, creatures of great beauty and danger that have existed in our world since the dawn of time. You will shape earth, air, water, and fire, bending them to your will. You will study our past as you become our future. You will discover what your ordinary self would never have had the privilege to see. You will learn great things and you will do greater things.

“Welcome to the Magisterium.”

There was applause. Call looked around: Everyone’s eyes were shining. And as much as he fought against it, he was sure he looked the same.

Master Rufus stepped forward. “Tomorrow, you will see more of the school, but for tonight, follow your Masters and get yourselves settled in your rooms. Please stay close as they lead you through the Magisterium. The tunnel system is complex, and until you know it well, it’s easy to become lost.”

Lost in the tunnels, Call thought. It was the exact thing he’d been scared of since he’d first heard of this place. He shivered as he remembered his nightmare about being trapped underground. Some of his doubts were creeping back, his father’s warnings echoing in his head.