It was enough to decide him. "We're talking about this," he said, pulling the wristband out of his pocket and handing it over to Aaron, who examined it while Call explained the whole story - his conversation with his father, the warning that Call didn't know what he was, the letter Alastair had sent Rufus, the message with the wristband: Bind his magic.
"Bind your magic?" Aaron's voice rose. Tamara shushed him. Aaron returned his voice to a harsh whisper. "Why would he ask Rufus to do that? That's crazy!"
"I don't know," Call whispered back, looking up ahead anxiously. Alex and the other kids didn't seem to be paying any attention to them as they made their way up a low rise of hill, snaked through with big tree roots, calling Drew's name. "I don't understand any of it."
"Well, clearly the wristband was supposed to be a message to Rufus," Tamara said. "It means something. I just don't know what."
"Maybe if we knew whose it was," said Aaron. He handed the wristband to Call, who tied it onto his arm, above his own wristband and under his sleeve.
"Someone who didn't graduate. Someone who left the Magisterium when he or she was sixteen or seventeen - or someone who died here." Tamara looked at it again, frowning at the small medals with symbols on them. "I don't know exactly what these mean. Excellence in something, but what? If we knew, that would tell us something. And I don't know what this black stone means either. I've never seen one before."
"Let's ask Alex," Aaron said.
"No way," said Call, shaking his head and looking warily at the others trooping through the snow in the dark. "What if there is something wrong with me and he can figure it out just from looking at this wristband?"
"There's nothing wrong with you," Aaron said sturdily. But Aaron was the kind of person who had faith in people and believed stuff like that.
"Alex!" Tamara said loudly. "Alex, can we ask you something?"
"Tamara, no," Call hissed, but the older student had already fallen back to walk alongside them.
"What's up?" he asked, blue eyes inquisitive. "You guys all right?"
"I was just wondering if we could see your wristband," Tamara said, with a quelling look in Call's direction. Call relented.
"Huh. Sure," Alex agreed, unsnapping the band and handing it over. It had three stripes of metal on it, ending with bronze. It was also studded with gems: red and orange, blue and indigo and scarlet.
"What are these for?" Tamara asked innocently, though Call had a feeling she probably knew the answer.
"The completion of different tasks." Alex sounded matter-of-fact, not like he was bragging. "This one is for using fire successfully to dispel an elemental. This one is for using air to create an illusion."
"What would it mean if you had a black one?" Aaron asked.
Alex's eyes widened. He opened his mouth to answer at the same moment Jasper yelled, "Look!"
A bright light glowed out from the ridge of the hill opposite theirs. As they stared, a scream split the night, high and terrible.
"Stay here!" Alex barked, and started to run, half slipping down the side of the hill they were on, heading toward the light. Suddenly, the night was full of noise. Call could hear other groups shouting and calling to one another.
Something slid through the sky above them - something scaly and snakelike - but Alex wasn't looking up.
"Alex!" Tamara yelled, but the older boy didn't hear her - he had reached the other hill and was starting to scramble up it. The scaly shadow was over his head, swooping and dipping.
The kids were all shouting for Alex now, trying to warn him - all of them except for Call. He started to run, ignoring the twisting burn in his leg as he slid and nearly fell down the hillside. He heard Tamara scream his name, and Jasper yell, "We're supposed to stay here," but Call didn't slow. He was going to be the apprentice that Aaron thought he was, the one who there was nothing wrong with. He was going to do the kind of things that got you mysterious heroic achievements on your wristband. He was going to throw himself right into the fray.
He tripped over a loose stone, fell, and rolled to the bottom of the hill, banging his elbow hard on a tree root. Okay, he thought, not the best start.
Staggering to his feet, he started to climb again - he could see things more clearly now, in the light that poured down from the hilltop. It was a clear knifelike light that threw every pebble and hole into sharp relief. The rise grew steeper as Call reached the top; he fell to his knees and clambered the last few feet, rolling onto the flat surface of the hilltop.
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.