“It must be something about your face,” Tamara said, shaking her head as though he was being even more ridiculous than usual. “But what I actually meant was that I’ll let Aaron practice on me. I volunteer to be soul-tapped.”
Aaron gave her a dubious look. “Why? I don’t want to hurt you!”
She shrugged. “I want to know how it works and maybe I won’t be able to tell much, but maybe I will. And since you’re worried about it hurting, I can tell you.”
Call hesitated. He felt stupid for objecting to the whole thing. Learning how to tap people into sleep was pretty awesome, so long as it didn’t scramble their souls. If someone was annoying him, a little soul tap would take care of that. He could make Jasper pass out constantly.
“Fine, fine,” Call said. “Teach me how to do it, too.”
Tamara gave him a dirty look, but Alma was all smiles. “It’s easy,” she told him.
It wasn’t. Alma understood the theory but had never done it herself, and the last time she’d had a Makar to experiment with was almost two decades before. According to her, the act took a massive amount of focus, first to see a soul and then to reach out the thinnest sliver of chaos magic to touch it.
Call got paired with Alma, much to his annoyance, while Aaron got Tamara. The idea of touching the soul of someone he barely knew made him feel cold and shuddery and strange.
He had to try, though. He closed his eyes and tried to do what she said, tried to see her soul like he’d seen Aaron’s. But it wasn’t the same. Aaron was one of his best friends. This was like playing hide-and-seek when everything was dark, grabbing around randomly. But he caught hold of her soul without quite meaning to. He wasn’t just tapping it; he could feel the silver length of it wriggling like a fish out of water. He had the impression of iron will and enormous sadness and sudden terror, before he pulled his thoughts away from her. Gasping, he opened his eyes just in time to see hers roll up in her head.
She collapsed onto the pile of pillows that Master Rufus had conjured from some other area of the Magisterium.
He glanced over to see Aaron catch Tamara in his arms as she swooned gracefully. Aaron held her for a moment before her eyes fluttered open and she laughed and straightened up, grinning at Aaron.
Rufus had hurried to Alma’s side. “She’s still unconscious,” he said. “But she’s all right.” He looked grim. “Good work, everyone.”
Call had done it. He had tapped someone’s soul. He just didn’t feel good about it. Not at all.
Friday dawned. Callum was awoken by Havoc licking his bare feet, which was gross and also tickled. Call twisted around, still half-asleep, trying to protect his toes by scooting them under the covers. But that just made Havoc leap onto the bed and lick his face.
“Off — murpf — come on!” Call sputtered, covering his head with one hand and pushing the wolf back with another. Sometimes knowing where Havoc’s tongue had been was worse than not knowing.
Pulling on his uniform, still drowsy, he wondered if he could soul-tap Havoc back to sleep for another fifteen minutes, but then he decided what with him being Chaos-ridden and all, probably enough had been done to Havoc’s soul.
Call padded into the common room and banged on Tamara’s door. It was her turn to accompany him on morning walks. A groan came from inside and a few minutes later she opened the door, looking as bleary-eyed as he felt, wearing her purple armband. That reminded Call to go back for his. They staggered out into the hall, holding a leash no one had bothered to attach to Havoc.
“Today’s the day,” Tamara said, pointing to her armband, when they were halfway to the Mission Gate. “Everyone’s going to be expecting big things from us at this test, but I’ve been talking to the other students, and Master Rufus has been spending so much time teaching us about personal responsibility and teaching you two about chaos magic that I don’t think we’re ready.”
Call had been concentrating on not tripping. His leg was always stiff in the mornings and it was tricky to put too much weight on it before it limbered up. He nodded. Call always suspected he wasn’t ready for things, but he didn’t like Tamara agreeing with him.
“Maybe we can use chaos magic,” he suggested. “It can be our not-so-secret weapon.”
She snorted. “Sure, if you want everyone to think you cheated.”
“It’s not cheating!” Call insisted. “It’s Aaron’s and my magic.”
Tamara raised her eyebrows. “Is that what you’d think if you weren’t a Makar?”
“Probably not,” Call said reasonably. “But I am a Makar.”
She made the face at him that meant she was either annoyed or amused. Call was never sure in which direction the expression was weighted — all he knew was that she wore it a lot, especially around him.
Havoc did his business as Call drank in the fresh air and kicked at some leaves. Then they went back inside, where they discovered that their stuff had finally been deemed harmless by the mages and returned to them. Although Call was tempted to look through everything, he grabbed Miri, sheathed the knife, and headed for the Refectory with Tamara. They found Aaron already at their table, with Jasper and Rafe. Aaron’s whole body was hunched over his plate, as though he were trying to disappear.
Tamara flopped down in a chair and regarded Jasper. “Well? Did you find out anything useful?”
Japer raised an eyebrow at her. “Go away, Rafe,” he said.
“Why?” screamed Rafe. “For the love of God, why?” He seized his plate and moved to another table as Jasper looked after him with raised eyebrows.
“Never mind him. He’s always grouchy in the morning,” he said. “Anyway, I did talk to Celia. I had to really pull out my full range of charms to get anything out of her.”
Aaron looked alarmed. Call rolled his eyes. “Please, no more masculine tips,” Aaron begged. “Just tell us what she said, if she said anything.”
Jasper looked mildly deflated. “There aren’t any rumors about any Makars other than you two. Although apparently there’s a lot of chatter about you guys, if you’re interested. How you took down the Enemy. Whether you’re going to start experimenting with your powers. If you have girlfriends.”
“Why would they have girlfriends?” Tamara sounded shocked.