Magisterium Series: The Silver Mask

***The Silver Mask*** is the fourth and penultimate book in *The Magisterium* series by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black. It was released on October 10, 2017.

## Synopsis

A generation ago, Constantine Madden came close to achieving what no magician had ever achieved: the ability to bring back the dead. He didn't succeed . . . but he did find a way to keep himself alive, inside a young child named Callum Hunt.

Now Call is one of the most feared and reviled students in the history of the Magisterium, thought to be responsible for a devastating death and an ever-present threat of war. As a result, Call has been imprisoned and interrogated. Everyone wants to know what Constantine was up to—and how he lives on.

But Call has no idea.

It is only when he's broken out of prison that the full potential of Constantine's plan is suddenly in his hands . . . and he must decide what to do with his power.

In this spellbinding fourth book of *Magisterium*, bestselling authors Holly Black and Cassandra Clare take us beyond the realm of the living and into the dangers of the dead.

## Plot

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**SPOILER WARNING: Plot details follow. *Caution is advised.***

The book opens up with Call imprisoned in the Panopticon, the mages’ prison, and he is not enjoying himself. Soon, he is visited by Master Rufus, then his father, and then, to his surprise, Jasper. As he and Jasper talk, they realise the Panopticon is on fire. The two escape with the help of Tamara, Anastasia Tarquin and Tamara’s Devoured sister, Ravan, and Havoc. However, Tamara is shocked to find out that Anastasia has planned the breakout with Master Joseph and Alex Strike, who both arrive to take Call, Tamara and Jasper to a secret island where they’ve created camp in the Madden's old house.

Forced to stay in creepy rooms, Jasper's room being consider the creepiest, (Tamara in a violently pink room, Jasper in Drew Wallace’s old room, and Call in Constantine Madden’s old room), the three immediately plot to escape. When they try and escape in the back of a delivery van, they’re brought back by its driver, a mage called Hugo, also in league with Jospeh. However, Master Joseph gives Call a deal. He wants him to perform a task, and if he succeeds then Call, Tamara and Jasper are free to go back to the Magisterium and they’ll never been interferes with again. The task is to raise Aaron Stewart from the dead, as a person, not as a chaos-ridden. Call agrees and, forced to work with Alex, Aaron’s killer, the two begin practicing bring dead stoats back to life. The attempts are unsuccessful; one stoat is even exploded with the force of the magic.

Tamara has other plans than staying at the creepy house. The three of them stumble across a stash of Jericho Madden’s old belongings, and a diary, down in a complex of catacombs. Here, Call and Tamara kiss, after both explaining their feelings for each other. That night, the three of them walk to a place Jasper knows about. A lake where a vast army of chaos-ridden are being stored, ready to march on the Magisterium, Collegium and Assembly. Tamara and Jasper plot to destroy the army. Call decides that night he needs to raise Aaron from the dead, and plans it privately.

After reading Jericho’s journal, in which he describes a horrifying experience where Constantine killed a woman in hospital trying to use her little spark of life to fully restore her, Call learns that Constantine used pieces of Jericho’s soul to power all of his Chaos-ridden. He realises using soul pieces is the secret to reviving the dead; however, he must use a piece of his own soul to succeed, and that is the reason Constantine never succeeded. Using this new discovery, he brings Aaron back, but he doesn't act normal. Tamara, Jasper, Alex and Master Joseph rush in, all stunned to see Aaron alive, but they also soon realize that Aaron isn't quite acting like himself.

Sapped of his magic, Call falls asleep and is woken by Anastasia, who is thrilled with what Constantine has achieved. He is visited by Tamara, who makes him promise to let Aaron go if he doesn’t start acting like himself, or becomes so changed he is no longer the Aaron they knew. Call agrees.

No less than a day later, Call is woken up when an explosion lights up the night. He sees Ravan stalling in her massive fiery form as Tamara and Jasper escape to warn the Magisterium of what’s going on. The next morning, Master Joseph asks exactly how Call raised Aaron from the dead so that he can try to raise Drew too. Call knows it would probably kill him, so Alex has to do it. Later Call is talking to Aaron about what happened last night and Aaron obeys perfectly when Call asks him to shut up. Call realizes that Aaron is listening to him like a chaos-ridden would, and is mortified and commands Aaron to never listen to his commands again. Right after, Anastasia comes back from looking for Tamara and Jasper, and Master Joseph comes outside. They tell Call that Tamara and Jasper made it to the Magisterium and had told the Assembly about what happened, so they decide to reveal themselves to the world and talk to the Assembly. They talk about Aaron being resurrected and Call announces he's the Enemy of Death and that he's accepted his destiny.

Later, Call decides to try to find out what he messed up while raising Aaron, because although his Makar powers were stolen by Alex, Aaron doesn't have any magic at all. So they go to the experimentation room and find Alex trying to raising Drew from the dead. Alex fails and declares that Call lied. Call looks into Aaron’s soul and finds coils of chaos hanging on to his piece of soul. Master Joseph interrupts Call and tries to stop him from messing with Aaron’s soul because he needs Aaron to show the Assembly that they know how to raise the dead. Master Joseph makes Aaron angry so he breaks Master Joseph’s neck and he dies.

After that, Alex is distraught, and Call and Aaron try to leave the island, but Hugo, the other mages bring them back to the house, on Alex's orders. At sunset, Call and Aaron are brought outside and see the huge battle about to unfold on the front lawn, with the Assembly on one side, and the evil mages and the Chaos-ridden on the other. Before the fight, the Assembly calls for a parlay and Alex sends Call down to talk. Call meets up with Master Rufus, Tamara and Jasper, and he tells them about everything that has happened. Then Assembly-man Graves comes and explain to Call what the Assembly had decided, that Call must sacrifice himself to kill Alex. Call is scared to die, so he runs away back to the big house. Alex then tells Call to attack with Constantine's Chaos-ridden, otherwise he'd kill him and Aaron. Call decides to do it just to mess up Alex's army and to help the Assembly win, realizing in the process that Alex put Call's chaos-ridden in the front to get rid of them, so that Call has no power.

As the battle begins, Alex orders Call to attack with all the chaos-ridden, but Call disobeys, and tells his whole army of chaos-ridden to dance. The army drastically weakened, Alex attacks Call as the rest of the battle rages around them. Havoc blocks a shot of chaos from Alex, meant to kill Call, and Call crawls over to his body, while Alex gains on him. Call, summoning up all his fury, attacks Alex with chaos and sucks him into the void, rendering Alex's army useless.

Call is completely drained, lying on the ground and is slowly dying. People call his name and plead for him to wake up, but can't do anything except open his eyes a crack. Aaron comes over and says he can help him. So Aaron reaches down to Call and soul taps him, returning to him the piece of Call's soul that Call had put inside him. Call is revived and everything is good but Aaron can't survive without Call's soul. After some last words, Aaron slumps over in Call and Tamara's arms, and dies... again.

Call and his friends grieve over Aaron for a little while. Call knows that what Aaron did was the right thing but is still horrified by the fact that his best friend is dead. Call is very sad and tired, but then he hears a bark - Havoc's bark. It turns out that while the Alkahest had hit Havoc, instead of killing him it had taken the Chaos out of him and made him into a normal wolf. Call is happy and they all head towards the elementals who are going to take them back to the Magisterium. On the way, Call hears Aaron's voice in the back of his head, normal as can be.

Alex becomes the first ever chaos devoured; the mask became his face, and he plans revenge.

## Trivia

* One of the working titles shared online was *The Golden Boy*.