“So they have to be controlled for everyone’s good,” Call said. He could hear the doubt and suspicion in his own voice.
“One of the metal elementals, Automotones, escaped after Verity Torres’s battle with the Enemy,” said Rufus. “He tore a bridge apart. The cars on it plunged into the water. People drowned before he was returned to his place below the Magisterium.”
“He wasn’t punished?” Tamara sounded particularly interested in this.
Rufus shrugged. “As I said, it would be like punishing a volcano for erupting. We need these creatures. They are all we have to match the force of Constantine’s Chaos-ridden.”
“Can we see one?” Call asked.
“What?” Rufus paused, pen in hand.
“I want to see one.” Even Call wasn’t entirely sure why he was asking. There was something that compelled him about the idea of a creature that was neither evil nor good. That never had to worry about how to behave. A force of nature.
“In a few weeks, you will be starting missions,” said Rufus. “You will be on your own outside the Magisterium, traveling, carrying out projects. If you complete those successfully, I see no reason why you couldn’t view a sleeping elemental.”
There was a knock on the door, and after Rufus said it was okay to enter, it was pushed open. Rafe came inside. He’d looked a lot happier since Master Lemuel had left the Magisterium, but Call wondered if he’d been scared to come back to school after Drew’s death. “Master Rockmaple sent you this,” he said, holding out a folded-over paper to Master Rufus.
Master Rufus read it, then crumpled it in one hand. It burst into flame, blackening to ash. “Thank you,” he said to Rafe with a nod, as though setting correspondence on fire was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. “Tell your Master I will see him at lunch.”
Rafe left, wide-eyed.
Call desperately wished he could see whatever was on that paper. The problem with having a horrible secret was that any time anything happened, Call worried it had something to do with him.
But Master Rufus didn’t even look in his direction when he resumed the lesson. And when nothing happened the next day or the day after, Call forgot to be worried.
And as the weeks went by and the leaves on the trees began to blaze with yellow and red and orange, like conjured fire, it became easier and easier for Call to forget he had a secret at all.
AS THE WEATHER turned nippy, Call started wearing hoodies and sweaters on his walks with Havoc. Havoc had never really experienced fall and was having a deliriously good time hiding in piles of leaves with only his spotted paws sticking up.
“Does he think we can’t see him?” Celia asked curiously one day, after Havoc had leaped down the side of a hill and crashed into a huge leaf pile. Just his tail was visible, sticking out of the end of the pile.
“I can only see his tail,” Call said. “He’s doing pretty well, really.”
Celia giggled. Call had gone from thinking it was weird that Celia laughed at everything he said to thinking it was kind of awesome. She was wearing a red fuzzy sweater and looked pink-cheeked and pretty.
“So how did your dad react when you brought Havoc home?” she asked, gathering up a handful of leaves from the ground: yellow, gold, and russet.
Call chose his words carefully. “Not well,” he said. “I mean, we live in a small town. It would be kind of hard to keep any pet a secret, and even though no one knows what Chaos-ridden is, they do know what a big wolf is.”
“Yeah.” Celia’s eyes rounded with sympathy. “He must have been worried someone would hurt Havoc.”