The Iron Trial by Holly Black

Author:Holly Black
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2014-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

CALL WOKE THE next day scared that Master Rufus would say something about the scattered papers, wrecked model, and missing envelope in his office … and even more scared that he would say something about the missing elemental. He dragged his heels all the way to the Refectory, but when he got there, he overheard a heated argument between Master Rufus and Master Milagros.

“For the last time, Rufus,” she was saying in the tone of someone much aggrieved, “I don’t have your lizard!”

Call didn’t know whether to feel bad or laugh.

After breakfast, Rufus led them down to the river, where he instructed them to practice picking up water, tossing it into the air, and catching it without getting wet. Pretty soon Call, Tamara, and Aaron were breathless, laughing, and soaked. By the time the day was over, Call was exhausted, so exhausted that what had happened the day before seemed distant and unreal. He headed back to his room to puzzle over his father’s letter and the wristband but was sidetracked by the fact that Warren had eaten one of his shoelaces, slurping it up like a noodle.

“Dumb lizard,” he muttered, hiding the armband he’d worn in the wyvern exercise, and the crumpled letter from his father, in the bottom drawer of his desk and shoving it closed so the elemental wouldn’t eat them, too.

Warren said nothing. His eyes had gone a grayish color; Call suspected the shoelace was disagreeing with him.

The biggest distraction from trying to puzzle out what his dad had meant turned out, to Call’s surprise, to be his classes. There was no more Room of Sand and Boredom; instead, there was a roster of new exercises that made the next few weeks go by quickly. The training was still hard and frustrating, but as Master Rufus revealed more of the magical world, Call found himself growing increasingly fascinated.

Master Rufus taught them to feel their affinity with the elements and to better understand the meaning behind what he called the Cinquain, which, along with the rest of the Five Principles of Magic, Call could now recite in his sleep.

Fire wants to burn.

Water wants to flow.

Air wants to rise.

Earth wants to bind.

Chaos wants to devour.

They learned how to kindle small fires and to make flames dance on their palms. They learned to make waves in the cave pools and call over the pale fish (although not to operate the boats, which continued to annoy Call to no end). They even began to learn Call’s favorite thing — levitating.

“Focus and practice,” Master Rufus said, leading them to a room covered with bouncy mats stuffed with moss and pine needles from the trees outside the Magisterium. “There are no shortcuts, mages. There’s only focus and practice. So get to it!”

They took turns trying to draw energy from the air around them and use it to push themselves upward from the soles of their feet. It was much harder to balance than Call would have thought. Over and over, they fell giggling onto the mats, on top of one another.

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