49 pages • 1 hour read
Holly Black, Cassandra ClareThe Iron Trial
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 21-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary
Master Rufus takes Aaron for special training, so Call and Tamara join Master Milagros’s class. They go into the woods and practice creating and throwing fireballs. The final level of difficulty entails balancing on floating logs while juggling the fireballs. Master Milagros advises Call to sit the drill out, suggesting that it will be too hard for him to balance with his leg. Jasper mocks Call as he watches, and Call gets onto Celia’s log after she falls off. He falls into the water and becomes caught in rocks on the riverbed. Unexpectedly, Jasper saves him.
Call’s ankle on his uninjured leg is sprained in the accident. He is taken to the infirmary, where a mage creates a cast of moss and mug and gives him a potion that sends him to sleep.
Call wakes to find Tamara and Aaron at his bedside. They have bought Havoc to see him, as well as some food. Aaron leaves to walk Havoc outside. They discuss Alastair’s desire for Call not to return for his second year; Call wants to come back. Suddenly, they realize that Aaron has been gone for a long time. They leave the infirmary and go to the Mission Gate. Aaron is nowhere to be seen, but Havoc barks and whines at them, seeming to want them to follow. Worried about Aaron, they follow Havoc.
Chapter 22 Summary
Tamara and Call follow Havoc through miles of forest, feeling increasingly concerned about Aaron. They realize that they should have gone for Master Rufus immediately but feel that they have gone too far, and neither wants to turn back. They cross a road and approach a building, which they realize is a bowling alley. They climb in through a window.
They pass the bodies of zombie-like people, who are breathing but inert. They realize that the Enemy has taken Aaron and that they are in his base; the people are Chaos-ridden.
They creep through the building and peer into a room through a crack. Aaron is suspended by a chain, hanging upside down. Drew holds the other end of the chain, taunting Aaron. Below Aaron is a chaos elemental in a glass case. It is a dark, roiling shape with eyes and limbs that appear and disappear. Drew threateningly tells Aaron that the elemental will “suck [him] dry” (402).
Chapter 23 Summary
Drew continues to taunt Aaron. Tamara whispers that they should climb up to the rafters to free Aaron. Call whispers back that he can’t climb because of his leg but that he will distract Drew.
Call reveals himself to Drew, who is shocked to see him. Drew and Call discuss Drew’s deception at the Magisterium. Drew pretended to be worse at magic than he was to get Master Lemuel fired, and he ran from the Magisterium to get a message to his true Master. Call assumes that Drew is referring to the Enemy of Death, Constantine Madden, but Drew assures Call that Call doesn’t understand the situation and that they could be on the same team.
Suddenly, Drew breaks the glass encasing the chaos elemental. The elemental surges toward Call, who stabs it with Semiramis. Havoc attacks the elemental; the elemental tosses Havoc across the room, and Havoc doesn’t get up.
The elemental suddenly turns on Drew, who screams in pain as it swarms over him. Call picks up Havoc and runs through an adjoining room, looking for an exit; Tamara and Aaron have already run out a different way.
Suddenly, a commanding male voice yells at Call to stop. Terrified, Call stops, seeing a man in a silver mask like the one the Enemy wears. The man asks to look at Call. He points out that Alastair could have healed Call’s leg but chose not to; the man seems to know Call, addressing him by name. The man calls out to Drew and goes to investigate when he doesn’t call back. They go into the room where Drew and Aaron were and see that Drew is dead. The man keens and cries, devastated: Drew was his son.
The man faces Call threateningly. Call believes that he is about to die, but then the man throws himself at Call’s feet, begging and swearing his allegiance to his “Master.” Call is bewildered. The man says that Call is the Enemy of Death.
Chapter 24 Summary
The man explains that he is Master Joseph, Constantine Madden’s Master from the Magisterium who escaped with him. The real Callum Hunt, according to Master Joseph, died at the Cold Massacre; Constantine, who was irreparably injured, inserted his soul into the body of the young infant Call, destroying the soul already housed there. Sarah, Call’s mother, realized this and dropped Call, shattering his leg.
Master Joseph touches Call’s hand and projects images to him, including images of Constantine, who has the same gray eyes as Call; the Cold Massacre; and Call causing the concrete fissure in the playground.
Master Joseph reveals that he has been acting as the Enemy since the Cold Massacre, wearing the characteristic silver mask to disguise himself as Constantine. Constantine’s allies and close supporters have maintained this fiction to keep Call safe; they assumed until recently that Call knew who he really was, but Drew discovered the truth—that Call did not remember his past life. Joseph suggests that Call will shed his shell of a body and name when he is ready. Call is repulsed by the idea and tells Joseph that he will tell Master Rufus the truth. Joseph points out that if Call returns to the Magisterium and tells them his true identity, they will bind his magic. Joseph suggests that Call should return to the Magisterium and continue his education; he is confident that Call will become Constantine again when he is ready. Call insists that he would never go against the Magisterium and his friends, particularly Aaron, who is meant to overcome the Enemy.
Suddenly, the building’s roof explodes and collapses. Call grabs Havoc and struggles out of the wreckage. Chaos-ridden, zombie-like people swarm out of the wreckage toward them. Aaron directs chaos magic at them, and they die. Call convinces Aaron to leave the rest and run. Tamara, Aaron, and Call start back toward the Magisterium, but Call, exhausted and in immense pain, passes out.
Chapter 25 Summary
Call wakes up in the infirmary. Master Rufus talks to him about his experience at the bowling alley. Call says that after Drew died, he was there alone and spoke to no one; he thinks that if he tells Master Rufus the truth about Master Joseph’s revelations, his magic will be bound. Master Rufus seems disappointed but doesn’t press him further. Call speaks briefly to his dad in the glass tornado. Alastair is relieved that Call is okay and asks whether Drew told Call anything about Call’s identity; Call lies and says that he didn’t.
Students visit, bringing gifts and congratulating Call on defeating Chaos-ridden zombies and a chaos elemental and saving Aaron.
Master Rufus takes Tamara, Aaron, and Call to the Hall of Graduates. They pass through the Gate of Control, marking their progress from first-year to second-year students. Call hesitates, knowing that his power can never be bound beyond that point, but he passes through, nonetheless.
Chapters 21-25 Analysis
The concluding chapters of the novel explore The Danger and Power of Magic, particularly in the sinister Chaos-ridden people. These zombie-like people are a menacing combination of animate and inanimate: “[S]ome [are] standing upright and others leaning against the walls, but then [Call] realized two things—one, that their eyes [are] all closed, which would have been very strange for mannequins, and two, that their chests [rise] and [fall] as they [breathe]” (398). They lurch toward the children with the tell-tale swirling eyes of chaos; this nightmarish scene emphasizes the dangers of corrupted magical power. Constantine Madden refused to be bound by the Magisterium’s limits and checks and misused his magic for villainous purposes. The Chaos-ridden humans are stark symbols of Constantine’s corruption.
Tension builds through these chapters as the story’s twist is revealed and Call discovers his true identity as the reincarnation of the Enemy, Constantine. While Call spends much of the novel wondering about who he truly is, he increasingly feels that there is something inherently different about him, as hinted at through his father’s comments, Drew’s strange outburst, and Havoc’s affinity to him. Thinking about his father’s hints, Call thinks, “[T]here’s something wrong with me […] [but] I don’t want to know it” (382). He fears learning his true identity, sensing there is something sinister about it. This fear becomes a reality when Master Joseph tells him, “No, Callum Hunt. I am not the Enemy of Death […] You are” (423). The legitimacy of Master Joseph’s claim is established when Call senses its inherent authenticity, even though it scares him: “[T]here was something in it that pulled at Call, something his mind couldn’t let go of” (426). He sees Constantine’s gray eyes in Master Joseph’s projected recollections and recognizes them as the same shade as his own.
Call’s discovery of his identity is mirrored by Drew’s revelation of his true personality and Master Joseph’s admission that he has been posing as the Enemy of Death. Drew’s involvement in the mystery of Call’s identity is confirmed when Call and Tamara find him at the bowling alley. Drew’s timid personality, established previously when he ran from Master Lemuel, is revealed to be a facade to disguise his allegiance with his father Master Joseph, a loyal servant of the Enemy. Drew’s duplicitousness is revealed when he convincingly adopts his affected, cowardly manner, which led to Master Lemuel being fired, to Cal: “‘Oh, Master Lemuel is so mean. He scares me. And they fired him!’ Drew laughed, the innocent mask slipping away again, showing the coldness underneath” (408). Like Drew, Master Joseph reveals his true identity as well. Call assumes that Joseph is the Enemy. The authors use descriptors that could refer to Joseph or Constantine, including the man’s silver mask, the scarred face, and the command of chaos magic. However, Master Joseph inverts the power dynamic when he begs for forgiveness from Call. Joseph “drop[s] to his knees, his head bent, his whole posture one of supplication, as if he [is] begging Call for mercy. ‘Master, my Master,’ he rasp[s]. ‘Forgive me. I did not see’” (422).
Call’s decision to continue his magical training after the revelation of his identity highlights the intersecting themes of Friendship and Belonging and Fate and Destiny. Even though his soul was originally Constantine’s, Call decides that he is his own person and can be trusted to take control of his magic. This symbolic moment occurs at the book’s conclusion as Call walks through the first gate, the Gate of Control. Call chooses to trust his loyalty to Aaron and his sense that the Magisterium is where he is meant to be over a pre-destined fate as the Enemy of Death.
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