The Copper Gauntlet by Holly Black, Cassandra Clare Read Free Book Online Page B

supportive. “You okay?”
    Aaron took a deep breath. “I just —”
    “Have you heard?” An adult voice floated through the air, through the leaves. It was deep and bass; Call had heard it before. “Someone broke into the Collegium last week. They tried to steal the Alkahest.”
    Call and Aaron stared at each other, and then at Tamara, who had gone very still. She put her finger to her lips, quieting them.
    “Someone?” replied a light, female voice. “You mean the minions of the Enemy. Who else? He means to start up the war again.”
    “No broken Alkahest is going to save him once our Makar is trained and ready” came the reply.
    “But if he’s able to repair it, the tragedy of Verity Torres could repeat itself,” cautioned a third voice, this one a man’s, sharp with nervousness. “Our Makar is young, like she was. We need time. The Alkahest is too powerful for us to take an attempt to steal it lightly.”
    “They’re moving it to a more defensible location.” The woman’s voice again. “They were fools to keep it on display in the first place.”
    “Until we’re sure it’s secure, the safety of our Makar must be our highest priority,” the first speaker said.
    Aaron had gone still where he sat, the burbling water of the fountain loud in Call’s ears.
    “I thought having a Makar around was supposed to make us safer,” said the nervous voice. “If we’re busy guarding him, who’s guarding us?”
    Call stood up, struck by the thought that they were about a second away from overhearing one of the mages say something bad about Aaron. Something even worse than just speculating about the Enemy’s plans for killing him.
    Call wished he could tell Aaron that he was pretty sure the Enemy of Death hadn’t tried to steal the Alkahest — whatever that was — and also wasn’t currently planning anything worse than revenge on Jasper.
    Of course, he had no idea what Master Joseph was up to. So maybe the minions of the Enemy of Death were behind the attempted theft, which was less reassuring. Master Joseph had plenty of power on his own. He’d been managing without Constantine Madden for thirteen years, however much he said he needed Call.
    “Come on,” Tamara said loudly, grabbing Aaron’s arm and hauling him to his feet. She must have been thinking along the same lines as Call. “I’m starving. Let’s go get something to eat.”
    “Sure,” Aaron said, although Call could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Nonetheless, he followed Call and Tamara to the buffet table and watched while Call piled three plates with towers of shrimp and scallops, sausages and cheese.
    People kept coming up to Aaron, congratulating him on his control of the chaos elementals, wanting to invite him to things or tell him a story about their involvement in the last war. Aaron was polite, nodding along with even the dullest anecdotes.
    Call made Tamara a cheese plate, mostly because he was sure that Evil Overlords didn’t make other people cheese plates. Evil Overlords didn’t care if their friends were hungry.
    Tamara took the cheese plate, shrugged, and ate a dried apricot off it. “This is so boring,” she whispered. “I can’t believe Aaron isn’t dead from boredom.”
    “We have to do something,” Call said, throwing a breaded shrimp up into the air and catching it in his mouth. “People like Aaron act all nice until suddenly they explode and banish some annoying geezer into the void.”
    “That’s not true,” Tamara said, rolling her eyes. “You might do that, but Aaron wouldn’t.”
    “Oh, yeah?” Call raised his eyebrows. “Take a good look at his face and say that again.”
    Tamara studied Aaron for a long moment. Aaron was trapped in conversation with a skinny old mage in a pink suit, and his eyes looked glazed. “Fine. I know where we can go.” She dumped the plate Call had made her and grabbed hold of Aaron’s sleeve. He turned toward her in surprise and then shrugged helplessly at the adult