Something brushed past him then, something huge, something that brought a rush of air that sprayed dirt into his eyes. He choked and staggered to his feet.
“Help!” he heard a weak voice call. “Please, help me!”
Call looked around. The bright light was gone; there was only starlight and moonlight to illuminate the hilltop. It was covered with a tangle of roots and bushes. “Who’s there?” he said.
He heard what sounded like a hiccuping sob. “Call?”
Call started to blunder toward the voice, pushing through the undergrowth.
From behind him, people were shouting his name. He kicked aside some rocks and half slid down a small incline. He found himself inside a shadowy depression in the ground, lined with thorny bushes. A huddled figure lay at the opposite side.
“Drew?” Call called out.
The slight boy struggled to turn around. Call could see that one of his feet was jammed in what looked like a gopher hole. It was twisted at an ugly, painful-looking angle.
From behind him, two softly glowing orbs lit up the night. Call glanced back and realized they were floating over from the hill where the other students were standing. He could barely see the others from where he was, and he wasn’t sure they could see him at all.
“Call?” The tears shining on Drew’s face were bright in the moonlight. Call scooted closer.
“Are you stuck?” he asked.
“Of — of course,” Drew whispered. “I try to run away, and this is as far as I get. It’s h-humiliating.”
His teeth were chattering. He was wearing only a thin T-shirt and jeans. Call couldn’t believe he’d planned to run away from the Magisterium dressed like that.
“Help me,” Drew said through chattering teeth. “Help me get free. I have to keep running.”
“But I don’t get it. What’s wrong? Where are you going to go?”
“I don’t know.” Drew’s face twisted. “You have no idea what Master Lemuel’s like. He — he figured out that sometimes when I’m under a lot of stress, I do better. Like a lot better. I know it’s weird, but it’s always been the way I am. I do better on a testing day than I ever do in normal practice. So he figured out that he could make me better by keeping me under stress all the time. I barely … barely ever sleep. He only lets me eat sometimes and I never know when that’s going to be. He keeps scaring me, calling up illusions of monsters and elementals while I’m alone in the dark and I … I want to get better. I want to be a better mage, but I just …” He looked away and swallowed, his throat bobbing up and down. “I can’t.”
Call looked at him more closely. It was true that Drew didn’t look like the boy Call had met on the bus to the Magisterium. He was thinner. A lot thinner. You could see how his jeans hung loose, secured by a belt that was pulled all the way through to the last hole. His nails were bitten down and there were dark shadows under his eyes.
“Okay,” Call said. “But you’re not going to be able to run anywhere on this.” He leaned forward and put his hand on Drew’s ankle. It felt hot to the touch.
Drew yelped. “That hurts!”
Call eyed the ankle where it poked out below the hem of Drew’s jeans. It looked swollen and dark. “I think you might have broken a bone.”
“Y-you do?” Drew sounded panicked.
Call reached down inside himself, through himself, into the ground he was kneeling on. Earth wants to bind. He felt it give way under his touch, making a space where magic could spill in, the way water rose to fill up a hole scraped in the sand of a beach.
Call drew the magic through himself, into his hand, letting it flow into Drew. Drew gave a gasp.
Call pulled away. “Sorry —”
“No.” Drew looked at him wonderingly. “It’s hurting less. It’s working.”
Call had never done magic like that before. Healing had been something Master Rufus talked about, but they’d never practiced. But he’d managed it. Maybe there really was nothing wrong with him.
“Drew! Call!” It was Alex, followed by a shining globe of light that lit the ends of his hair like a halo. He skidded down the slope of the incline, nearly knocking into them. His face was pale in the moonlight.
Call moved away. “Drew’s stuck. I think his ankle’s broken.”
Alex bent over the younger boy and touched the earth that was trapping his leg in place. Call felt stupid for not having thought of the same thing as the ground crumbled away and Alex locked his arms under Drew’s shoulders, pulling him free. Drew yelled aloud in pain.
“Didn’t you hear me? His ankle’s broken —” Call started.
“Call. There’s no time.” Alex knelt down to lift Drew in his arms. “We have to get out of here.”
“W-what?” Drew seemed almost too stunned to function. “What’s going on?”
Alex was scanning the area anxiously. Call suddenly remembered all the warnings about what lurked in the woods outside the caverns of the school.
“The Chaos-ridden,” Call said. “They’re here.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A LOW HOWL CUT through the night. Alex started up the incline, gesturing impatiently for Call to follow. Call scrambled after him, his leg aching.
When they reached the top, Call saw Aaron and Tamara coming over the crest of the hill, Celia, Jasper, and Rafe right behind. They were panting, alert.
“Drew!” Tamara gasped, staring at the limp figure in Alex’s arms.
“Chaos-ridden animals,” Aaron said, coming to a stop in front of Call and Alex. “They’re coming up over the far side of the hill —”
“What kind?” Alex asked urgently.
“Wolves,” said Jasper, pointing.
Still holding Drew in his arms, Alex turned and stared in horror. Moonlight showed dark shapes slipping from the woods, advancing toward them. Five wolves, long and lean, with fur the color of a stormy sky. Their snouts scented the air, their coruscating eyes wild and strange.
Alex bent down and laid Drew carefully on the ground. “Listen to me,” he shouted to the other students, who were milling fearfully. “Make a circle around us while I heal Drew. They have a sense for the weak, the wounded. They’ll attack.”
“We only have to hold off the Chaos-ridden until the Masters get here,” Tamara said, charging in front of Alex.
“Right, hold them off, that’s simple,” Jasper spat out, but he fell into formation with the others, making a circle of their bodies, with their backs to Alex and Drew. Call found himself standing shoulder to shoulder with Celia and Jasper. Celia’s teeth were chattering.
The Chaos-ridden wolves appeared, low and feral, spilling up over the ridge like shadows. They were huge, much bigger than any wolves Call had ever imagined. Ropes of drool hung from their open jaws. Their eyes burned and spun, sparking that feeling inside Call’s head again, the itchy-burning-thirsty one. Chaos, he thought to himself. Chaos wants to devour.
As terrifying as they were, though, the more Call looked at them, the more he thought their eyes were beautiful, like the inside of a kaleidoscope, a thousand different colors all at once. He couldn’t tear his gaze away.
“Call!” Tamara’s voice cut through his thoughts — Call jolted back into his body, realizing suddenly that he had stepped out of the formation and was several feet ahead of the rest of the group. He hadn’t moved away from the wolves. He’d moved toward them.