Anyway, Celia had said to come alone. Which he should definitely do if this was going to be about dating. Which he really hoped it wasn’t.
According to the map, the Trophy Room wasn’t far. He headed away from the crowd, through a set of doors and down a marble corridor with small alcoves set into the walls, holding old manuscripts and artifacts. Call liked the clicking sounds his shoes made on the floor as he went. He stopped to peer at an old wristband that must have been the prototype for the one he wore. The leather had been worn thin and several of the stones were missing from their setting. He didn’t recognize the name of the mage who was on the plaque behind it, but the date of his death was 1609, which seemed like a very long time ago.
A few more steps and Call came to the Trophy Room. Over the door, a sign read AWARDS AND HONORS. The door was propped open, so he slipped noiselessly inside.
It was a dim, solemn room, smaller than the main hall. Like the hall, the space was illuminated by an enormous chandelier, this one with blown-glass arms in the shape of octopus tentacles, each sucker dripping with crystals, as though droplets of water clung to them. The walls were covered with a collection of plaques and medallions that must have been given to students at the Collegium.
Call was entirely alone.
He took a turn around the room, glancing at the pictures of mages on the walls, wishing for a window where he could look at a fish or something to pass the time. He was sure Celia would be along in a minute.
After several minutes passed, he took out the note again and reread it. Maybe he’d misunderstood. Maybe she’d written that she’d meet him in fifteen minutes or an hour. But no, the note didn’t specify any time.
After a few more minutes, he decided she wasn’t coming.
He felt unexpectedly glum. If this was his first date, it was a bust. Celia had probably written the note and then forgotten all about him and found someone else to dance with — someone who actually could dance. Maybe she was dancing with Jasper. Or she was waltzing around with an impressive Gold Year student who could tell her all about his achievements, and she was so mesmerized that she’d stood Call up. Later he’d meet her outside the Magisterium to walk Havoc and she’d wave it off. I was going to meet you, she’d say, but you know how it is when you meet someone who’s actually interesting! Time just flies.
Call looked at his reflection in the glass of a trophy case. His hair was sticking up. Probably Call would be alone forever, and die alone, and Alastair would bury him in a car graveyard.
The door opened; there were footsteps. Call whirled, but it wasn’t Celia standing there. It was Tamara and Aaron.
“What are you doing in the Trophy Room?” Tamara asked, frowning. “Are you okay?”
Aaron looked around, puzzled. “Are you hiding in here?”
Call was entirely sure that nothing like this — being stood up and humiliated — had ever happened to Aaron. He was doubly sure nothing like this had happened to Tamara.
Come to think of it, what were Tamara and Aaron doing here together? What if they’d been going off to do some kind of hand-holding dating thing together? It was bad enough that Call was sure Tamara would always choose Aaron first, but if they were dating, then Aaron would always choose Tamara, too.
“Are you okay?” Aaron asked, frowning in confusion at Call’s silence. “Your dad told us he saw you come this way.”
Relief washed over Call that they hadn’t come here to be alone, but to find him. Now all he had to do was figure out how to explain what he’d been doing. “Well,” he said, taking a step toward them, “you see —”
He was cut off by a grind and screech, a terrible metallic sound. Call looked up to see the chandelier hurtling toward him, octopus arms and dazzling crystals and all.
“Call!” Tamara screamed. The chandelier tumbled brilliantly down toward Call. Something hit him hard from the side. Pain shot up his leg as he struck the floor and skidded, someone’s fingers digging into the back of his jacket.
It was Tamara. He saw a blur of her dark hair and yellow dress, and then the chandelier hit the floor beside them. It was like a bomb going off. There was a horrible musical shattering. Shards of crystal exploded toward them. Call tried to curl his body around to block Tamara. He heard her scream, and then suddenly everything was very dark and quiet.
For a moment, Call wondered if he was dead. But it didn’t seem likely that the afterlife meant lying on a stone floor next to Tamara, while a black cloud hovered over them. Tamara was gasping, wide-eyed. Call rolled to the side awkwardly and stared.
Aaron was standing over them, his hand outstretched. Dark, nebulous chaos spilled from his palm, forming a wall around Tamara and Call, drawing into itself the flying bits of broken glass and crystal from the shattered chandelier. Call tried to call out to Aaron, but the chaos sucked away his voice.
He could feel a pull inside him — Call was Aaron’s counterweight, and when Aaron used chaos magic, he felt it. The room beyond Aaron seemed to be wavering — and then Aaron dropped his hand and the darkness vanished.
Call staggered to his feet, reaching down to pull Tamara up after him. One of her cheeks had been cut by a piece of flying glass and was bleeding. Tamara was clutching his arm in a death grip, but now that she was standing, he thought she might be holding him up. Aaron was leaning against the wall, wide-eyed and breathing hard from exertion.
“What,” he said in a raspy voice, “just happened?”
Before Call could answer, the doors flew open and the other partygoers flooded into the room.
CALL’S VISION WAS swimming, making everything a little surreal. People streamed into the room, shocked and gaping. Voices, muttering and yelling, washed across his brain.
The chandelier looked like a huge dead animal collapsed in the middle of the room. Most of its arms were smashed off, and broken glass was everywhere in glittering, razor-sharp piles.
“What’s going on in here?” a black-haired man shouted. Call had a vague memory from the ceremony that he was a teacher at the Collegium, and that his name was Master Sukarno. He was a big man, imposing, and his face was red with fury.
“That was chaos magic!” He whirled on Aaron and Call. “Were you playing around with void magic? How foolish can you be? Chaos magic is strictly controlled everywhere, but forbidden in these rooms. We’re underwater and cannot risk the structural integrity of the school being compromised by arrogant children amusing themselves! We could all have drowned.”