For a long moment, Call stared into the dark beyond, until he started to wonder if anything was there. Maybe the test was to see if the apprentices actually believed the mages would do something as ridiculous as letting twelve-year-olds fight wyverns in gladiatorial combat.

Then he saw shining eyes in the gloom. Great clawed feet crunched through the dirt as three creatures emerged from the cave. They were as tall as two men and stood on their back legs, bodies hunched over, dragging spiked tails behind them. Vast wings beat the air where arms might have been. Wide, toothy mouths snapped at the ceiling.

All Call’s father’s warnings beat inside his head, making him feel like he couldn’t breathe. He was more scared than he could remember being before. All the monsters of his imagination, every beast that hid in closets or under beds was dwarfed by the nightmares that clawed hungrily toward him.

Fire wants to burn, Call thought to himself. Water wants to flow. Air wants to rise. Earth wants to bind. Chaos wants to devour. Call wants to live.

Jasper, apparently possessed of an entirely different feeling about his own survival, broke away from the huddle of the apprentices and, with a great howl, ran directly toward the wyverns. He lifted his hand and thrust it, palm out, toward the monsters.

A very small ball of fire shot from his fingers, flying past one of the wyvern’s heads.

The creature roared in fury, and Jasper balked. He thrust out his palm again, but now only smoke rose from it. No fire at all.

A wyvern stepped toward Jasper, opening its mouth, thick blue fog pouring from its jaws. The fog curled through the air slowly, but not so slowly that Jasper was able to evade it. He rolled to one side, but the fog blew over him, surrounding him. A moment later, he was rising through it, floating up like a soap bubble.

The other two wyverns sprang into the air.

“Oh, crap,” said Call. “How are we supposed to fight that?”

Rage flashed across Aaron’s face. “It’s not fair.”

Jasper was yelling now, bobbing back and forth on the plumes of wyvern breath. Lazily, the first wyvern batted at him with its tail. Call couldn’t suppress a spark of pity. The other apprentices stood frozen, staring upward.

Aaron took a deep breath and said, “Here goes nothing.” As Call and the others watched, he dashed forward, throwing himself at the closest wyvern’s tail. He managed to catch it on the down stroke, and the wyvern let out a cry of surprise that sounded like a thunderclap. Aaron clung on grimly as the tail swung around, tossing him up and down as if he were riding a bucking bronco. Jasper, in his bubble, rose up and bobbled around at the ceiling among the stalactites, yelling and kicking out with his legs.

The wyvern cracked its tail like a whip, and Aaron went flying. Tamara gasped. Rufus flung out a hand, and flecks of ice crystals shot from it, coming together in midair, forming a hand-like shape that caught Aaron inches from the floor and then froze that way.

Call felt a burst of relief in his chest. He hadn’t realized until that moment how much he’d been worried that the Masters wouldn’t lift a hand to help them — that they’d just let them die.

Aaron struggled against the fingers, trying to get free. A few of the other Iron Year apprentices moved together in a pack, advancing toward the second wyvern. Gwenda made fire spark between her hands, blue as the flame on the lizards’ backs. The wyvern yawned at them lazily, sending out slow tendrils of breath. One by one, they began to rise through the air, shouting. Celia shot out a blast of ice as she rose. It missed, striking just to the left of the second wyvern’s head, making it roar.

“Call!” He whirled around at Tamara’s urgent whisper, just in time to see her dive behind a thicket of stalagmites. Call started to move after her, only to stop at the sight of Drew standing frozen, off to the side of the group.

Call wasn’t the only one who noticed. The third wyvern, eyes narrowed in a predatory yellow glare, curled around to face the frightened apprentice.

Drew flung both his arms down, palms facing the ground, as he muttered frantically. Then he rose slowly off the ground, lifting himself to the wyvern’s eye level.

He’s mimicking being hit by the smoke, Call realized. Smart.

Drew called up a ball of wind into his hand and aimed. The wyvern snorted in surprise, breaking Drew’s concentration and pinwheeling him in the air. Not wasting any time, the wyvern darted its head forward and snapped its beak, catching the very edge of Drew’s trouser leg. The cloth ripped as Drew kicked the air frantically.

Call rushed forward to help — just as the second wyvern swooped down from the cavern ceiling, straight toward him.

“Call, run!” Drew yelled. “Go!”

It was a good suggestion, Call thought, if only he could run. His weak leg twisted as he tried to dart away over the uneven ground, and he stumbled, righting himself quickly, but not quickly enough. The cold black eyes of the wyvern were focused on him, its talons extended as it grew closer and closer. Call broke into a shambling run, his leg aching as he thumped his foot down against the rock. He wasn’t fast enough. Looking over his shoulder, he tripped and went flying, slamming against gravel and sharp stone.

He rolled over onto his back. The wyvern reared up over him. Some part of Call was telling him that the Masters would step in before anything too serious happened, but a much bigger part of him was howling with fear. The wyvern seemed to take up his whole field of vision, its jaws opening, revealing a scaly maw and sharp teeth….

Call flung out his arm. He felt a burst of dull heat explode around him. A wave of sand and rock cascaded up from the ground, hammering against the wyvern’s chest.

The beast flew back and was knocked hard against the cave wall, before slumping to the ground. Call blinked, pushing himself slowly to his feet. When he was up, he looked around with new eyes.

Oh, he thought, seeing the mayhem unfolding all over the room, the fire streaking past and kids spinning in circles as they lost their concentration and their magic tossed them from side to side. He understood, all at once, why they’d been practicing in the sand room for so long. Against all odds, magic had become automatic to him. He knew the concentration it needed.

His wyvern was struggling to its feet, but now Call was ready. He focused, throwing his hand out, and three stalactites cracked free, slamming down and pinning the wyvern to the ground by its wings.

“Ha!” said Call.

The beast opened its beak, and Call moved to retreat, knowing he wouldn’t be fast enough to avoid the monster’s breath —

“Give me Miri,” Tamara yelled, coming from the shadows. “Quick!”

Reaching for his belt, Call pulled out the knife and tossed it to her. The wyvern’s mouth was open, smoke just beginning to curl out. With two quick strides, Tamara walked through the smoke to the wyvern and moved to stab the blade through the wyvern’s eye. Just as it was about to hit, the monster disappeared in a great gust of blue smoke, returning to its element with a howl of rage. Tamara began to float upward.

Call grabbed her leg. It was a little bit like holding the string of a balloon, since she continued to bob in the air.

She grinned down at him. She was smudged all over with dirt and sand, her hair loose and tumbling around her face. “Look,” she said, gesturing with Miri, and Call turned in time to see Aaron, free of the ice, sending a flood of small rocks toward a wyvern. Celia, from her perch, rained down more stones. In the air, they became a massive boulder that dispersed the creature with a single strike before it crashed into rubble against the far wall.