“Jasper, that’s enough,” Master Rockmaple said, though he didn’t sound as annoyed as he could have. “Get up here.”
Call returned his attention to his paper as Jasper sauntered up to the front of the room. All around him, kids were staring and whispering at the papers on their desks, willing them to move. Call’s stomach tightened uneasily. What if a gust of air came along and picked up his paper? What if it just … fluttered on its own? Would he get points for that?
Stay put, he thought savagely at the paper on his desk. Don’t you move. He pictured himself holding it down against the wood, fingers splayed, preventing it from twitching. Man, this is stupid, he thought. What a thing to do with your day. But he stayed where he was, concentrating. This time, he wasn’t alone. Several other kids were unable to move their papers, including Kylie.
“Callum?” said Master Rockmaple, sounding weary.
Call sat back. “I can’t do it.”
“If he can’t, he really can’t,” said Jasper. “Just give the loser a zero and let’s go before he creates a blizzard and we all die from paper cuts.”
“All right,” said the mage. “Everyone, bring me your papers and I’ll give you your marks. Come on, let’s get this room cleaned up for the next group.”
Relieved, Call reached for the paper on his desk — and froze. Desperately, he scrabbled at the edges of it with his fingernails, but somehow, he didn’t know how, the paper had sunk into the wood of the desk and he couldn’t get a grip on it. “Master Rockmaple — there’s something wrong with my paper,” he said.
“Everyone under the desks!” said Jasper, but no one was paying attention to him. They were all looking at Call. Master Rockmaple stalked over to him and stared down at the paper. It had well and truly become fused to the desk.
“Who did this?” demanded Master Rockmaple. He sounded flabbergasted. “Is this someone’s idea of a prank?”
Everyone in the class was silent.
“Did you do this?” Master Rockmaple asked Call.
I was just trying to keep it from moving, Call thought miserably, but he couldn’t say that. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the paper is defective.”
“It’s just paper!” the mage shouted, and then seemed to get control of himself. “All right. Fine. You get a zero. No, wait, you are going to be the first aspirant in Magisterium history to get a negative score on one of the Iron Trial tests. You get a minus ten.” He shook his head. “I think we can all be grateful that the final test is one you do alone.”
By that point, Callum was most grateful that it would all soon be over.
This time, the aspirants stood in the hallway outside a double door and waited to be called inside. Jasper was speaking to Aaron, looking over at Call like he was the subject they were discussing.
Call sighed. This was the last test. Some of the tension drained out of him at the thought. No matter how well he did, one last test wasn’t going to make that much of a difference to his terrible score. In less than an hour, he’d be heading home with his dad.
“Callum Hunt,” called a mage who hadn’t introduced herself before. She had an elaborate snake-shaped necklace wound around her throat and was reading off a clipboard. “Master Rufus is waiting for you inside.”
He pushed off the wall and followed her through the double doors. The room was large and empty and dim, with a wooden floor where a single mage sat next to a large wooden bowl. The bowl was filled with water and there was a flame burning at its center, without wick or candle.
Call stopped and stared, feeling a little prickle against the back of his neck. He’d seen plenty of weird things that day, but this was the first time since the illusion of the cave that he’d really felt the presence of magic.
The mage spoke. “Did you know that to obtain good posture, people used to practice walking around with books balanced on their heads?” His voice was low and rumbling, the sound of a distant fire. Master Rufus was a large, dark-skinned man with a bald head as smooth as a macadamia nut. He stood up in one easy motion, lifting the bowl in his wide, callused fingers.
The flame didn’t waver. If anything, it shone a little more brightly.
“Wasn’t it girls who did that?” Call asked.
“Did what?” Master Rufus frowned.
“Walked around with books on their heads.”
The mage gave him a look that made Callum feel as if he’d said something disappointing. “Take the bowl,” he said.
“But the flame will go out,” Call protested.
“That is the test,” said Rufus. “See if you can keep the flame burning, and for how long.” He held out the bowl to Call.
So far, none of the tests had been what Call expected. Still, he’d managed to fail each one — either because he’d tried to or because he just wasn’t cut out to be a magician. There was something about Master Rufus that made him want to do better, but that didn’t matter. There was no way he was going to the Magisterium.
Call took the bowl.
Almost immediately, the flame inside leaped up, as though Call had turned the knob on a gas lamp too high. He jumped and deliberately tilted the bowl to the side, trying to slosh water over the flame. But instead of going out, it burned through the water. Panicking, Call shook the bowl, sending more small waves over the fire. It began to sputter.
“Callum Hunt.” It was Master Rufus looking down at him, his face impassive, his arms crossed over his wide chest. “I’m surprised at you.”
Call said nothing. He held the bowl with its sloshing water and sputtering flame.
“I taught both your parents at the Magisterium,” Master Rufus said. He looked serious and sad. The flame made dark shadows under his eyes. “They were my apprentices. Top of their class, the best marks in the Trial. Your mother would have been disappointed to have seen her son so obviously trying to fail a test simply because —”
Master Rufus never got to finish the sentence, because at the mention of Call’s mother, the wooden bowl cracked — not in half, but into a dozen splintered pieces, each sharp enough to stab into Call’s palms. He dropped what he was holding, only to see that each part of the bowl had caught fire and was burning steadily, little pyres scattered at his feet. As he looked at the flames, though, he wasn’t afraid. It seemed to him, in that moment, as though the fire were beckoning for him to step inside it, to drown his rage and fear in its light.
The flames leaped up as he looked around the room, shooting along the spilled water like it was gasoline. All Call felt was a terrible sweeping anger that this mage had known his mother, that the man right in front of him might have had something to do with her death.
“Stop it! Stop it right now!” Master Rufus shouted, grabbing both of Call’s hands and slamming them together. The slap of them made the fresh cuts hurt.
Abruptly, all the fires went out.
“Let me go!” Call yanked his hands away from Master Rufus and wiped his bloody palms on his pants, adding another layer of stains. “I didn’t mean to do that. I don’t even know what happened.”
“What happened is that you failed another test,” said Master Rufus, his anger replaced by what seemed like cold curiosity. He was considering Call the way a scientist considered a bug pinned to a board. “You may go back out and join your father on the bleachers to await your final score.”