“We’re going together now,” Alastair said. He put out his arm and Call saw that his father’s burned hand had been healed — not completely, but the bubbling black marks were just sore-looking red skin now. “Healing magic,” Alastair explained at Call’s surprised look. “Come on — lean on me.”
“Okay,” said Call, letting his father slide an arm around Call’s shoulders and help him make his way past the bodies of Drew and Jericho, past Verity’s laughing head and out onto the grass where Jasper, Tamara, and Aaron were standing. Aaron had both hands raised and was obviously doing all he could to hold back the chaos magic that was trying to rip the tomb apart. The moment he saw Call and Alastair he collapsed to his knees, letting go.
Blackness roared up like ash pouring out of a volcano. Call and Alastair stopped, Call leaning hard against his dad, as they watched the final resting place of the Enemy of Death be devoured by chaos magic. A thick, oily darkness covered the building, tendrils snaking along the outside like ivy. But as Call stared, he realized that it wasn’t really black — it was something darker, something that his eye was translating into the comprehensible, because what he was seeing was nothing. And where nothing touched, the building simply wasn’t, until what they were looking at was the flattened earth where a tomb had once been, Verity’s strange and terrible laughter still hanging in the air.
“Is it gone?” Jasper asked.
Aaron gave him a tired look. “The tomb went to the same place I sent Automotones.”
“Automotones?” Alastair looked shocked by that pronouncement. “But he’s trapped in the deepest pits of the Magisterium.”
“He was,” Call said. “The Magisterium sent him after us.”
Alastair inhaled in a way that he did only when he was angry or surprised or both. He took a few steps away from the rest of the group, obviously trying to clear his head. Call hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder. He was exhausted.
Master Joseph had gotten away — and worse, he’d gotten away with the Alkahest, the very device they’d come to keep out of their hands. The massed army of Chaos-ridden had vanished. Master Joseph must have commanded them to take him back to shore. He’d probably taken all the rowboats, too, just to be a jerk.
Suddenly, Call remembered that Havoc had been with the Chaos-ridden, that Havoc was Chaos-ridden, and so, if Master Joseph could command the rest of them, he could probably command the wolf, too.
“Havoc!” he shouted, panic reigniting in his chest. “Havoc!”
How could he have let his wolf stay outside the tomb? He’d left Havoc behind like Havoc was just a dog, when Havoc was way more than that.
Call rushed along the path back toward the beach, leg aching, nearly in tears, calling for his wolf. It was one more thing he wasn’t ready for, one more thing he couldn’t bear.
“Call!” his father shouted. Call turned and saw Alastair looking weary, walking up the path with Havoc at his heels. Call stared. His dad’s unburned hand was buried in the wolf’s fur, and there was ash on the wolf’s pelt, but he didn’t look otherwise harmed. “He’s okay. You rushed off before we could tell you, but he tried to get back into the tomb. We had to stop him, but it wasn’t easy.”
“Your father held him back,” Aaron said.
Havoc took a few steps toward Call. Call held his arms out and Havoc bounded into them, licking his face.
“That’s a way more touching reunion than you had with me,” Tamara said. She was going over Aaron’s cuts and scratches, using earth magic to heal the worst of them. She’d already fixed Jasper’s bloody lip.