The Magisterium Series

The Iron Trial

The cover of the first book in the series
Author	Holly Black, Cassandra Clare
Cover artist	Scott Fischer
Country	USA
Language	English
Series	Magisterium
Genre	Fantasy/adventure
Publisher	Scholastic Corporation
Publication date	September 2014

The Magisterium Series is intended to be a 5-book series for young adults. It is a fantasy series co-authored by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare. It is their first collaboration.^[1] The series was acquired by Scholastic in April 2012. The first book, The Iron Trial, was published in September 2014, and hit #3 on the New York Times Middle Grade Bestseller List.^[2] The books are set in an underground school where mages train apprentices to control the elements.^[3] The books are illustrated by Scott Fischer.

The Iron Trial

The protagonist of the series is twelve-year-old Callum Hunt, or Call, who was raised by his father and former mage - Alastair Hunt. Alastair rejected the world of magic after the death of his wife Sarah at the Cold Massacre during the Second Mage War. 'The Enemy of Death', Constantine Madden, was responsible for her death.

In the first book 'The Iron Trial', Call participates in a series of tests to see whether he has sufficient magic to attend training at the Magisterium. At the Magisterium apprentices are trained to be mages using the four elements of fire, air, water, and earth. Alastair instructs Call to fail the tests by whatever means necessary. Call, without effort, fails the tests, scoring even lower than those who do not even possess magical ability. But Master Rufus, a master at the Magisterium, sees that Call has power, but lacks control. Master Rufus decides to take him on as an apprentice. He also selects Tamara Rajavi and Aaron Stewart - the topped ranked students.

During the book after doing countless seemingly pointless and boring exercises the three apprentices become friends after a frigid start and Call starts to decide to stay on at the Magisterium after his Iron year to receive more tutelage and go against his father's wishes. After an exercise in the caverns Call, Tamara and Aaron are confronted by a fire elemental who tells them their fates. 'One will die, one will fail, another is already dead.' Call at dinner mentions this to the other students, one of whom, Drew, says the prophecy is complete babble. When Call walks out of the Cafeteria Drew asks for a moment to talk to him and says that it wasn't a good idea to tell everyone about the prophecy, but Call gets confused about what Drew means. At this Drew realizes something important and that night runs away leaving a note behind. When his note is found Call and the other apprentices and Masters go to look for him. After finding him Call, Aaron, Tamara, a bronze year student Alex Strike, and Drew are confronted by a pack of chaos-ridden wolves. Chaos is the fifth element and only Makars can wield it. When confronted Aaron ends up saving their lives by sending the wolves to the void using chaos magic and in doing so reveals himself to be a makar, astonishing everyone. On the way back to the Magisterium, Jasper DeWinter, someone whom Call dislikes and vice versa, tells everyone the story of Constantine Madden the chaos mage, and why he started the third mage war. While Jasper is telling this story Call finds a chaos-ridden wolf pup in the snow and decides to take the wolf, later named Havoc, into the Magisterium with him without telling anyone. Later after, an incident where Call foolishly decides to participate in an activity that he could not accomplish because of his bad leg that was smashed when he was a baby, Aaron is kidnapped by the Enemy's minions when taking Havoc for a walk. As neither Tamara nor Call wanted to leave Aaron they decided to save him without telling anyone. Walking in the forest outside the mission gate and the magisterium they come to a bowling alley where they find Aaron tied up and being dangled on top of a chaos elemental by their classmate Drew who works for the Enemy. Tamara releases Aaron and Call tries too leave too but Drew stops him by releasing the chaos elemental, which kills Drew after he calls the elemental a coward. Chased into another room Call is confronted by the Enemy of Death who, while being briefly angry about his son Drew's death, takes off his mask and tells Call that Call is Constantine Madden, The Enemy of Death and that he is Master Joseph who taught Constantine/Call. Callum and Master Joseph have a conversation where Joseph explains that, during the cold massacre Constantine had been mortally wounded and was dying, so he placed his soul into the body of a baby. That baby was Callum. Call also finds out that his father suspects he is The Enemy of Death as during the massacre after Constantine's soul had entered Call's body, Call's mother had written the words, 'Kill the Child' on the ice where she lay almost dead. Alastair had also sent a letter to Master Rufus earlier that year asking him to bind Callum's magic, sending Master Rufus a wristband that later turned out to be Constantine's.

The Copper Gauntlet

In the second book 'The Copper Gauntlet', Call finds that his father may be trying to destroy both him and Havoc, and runs away from home to go back to the magical world. He and his friends Aaron and Tamara then start the search for the stolen Alkahest, a copper gauntlet, which can kill Makars. They, and a sulky student from the Magisterium named Jasper start traveling, trying to find where Call's dad is. But they hadn't expected the dangers that are soon to come. Someone from the Magisterium sent dangerous elementals after them. Not to find them... No, instead, to kill them. They dangerously evade one elemental after another, and finally are faced before Master Joseph. They are taken to his secret lair, where it is revealed that Constantine's body is still intact, and that Joseph plans to transfer the soul from Call's body to Constantine's body. His plans are quickly foiled though, as Alistair quickly steals the Alkahest and destroys Constantine Madden's body, therefore foiling the plan to transfer the souls. Because of Constantine's death, Call receives the chaos magic in Constantine's body, and becomes a Makar. They quickly escape, and bring along Constantine's head as proof they killed the "Enemy", but his soul was still living inside Call. When they get back, they are praised as heroes, but a shocking fact is revealed. Nobody from the Assembly sent the elementals, so it must have been a spy. And he is out to kill Call.

The Bronze Key

In the third book 'The Bronze Key', the action starts shortly after the ending of the second as Call, Aaron and Tamara are beginning their third or bronze year at the Magisterium. The book picks up the story with a death among the students and a spy on the loose threatening Call. The group is invited to a party in their honor, where two tragic incidents occur. First, Call is almost killed by a chandelier when he is invited to a room by Celia with a note, but it is not as it seems. Few minutes later, he sees Jennifer, the person who delivered the note, dead in the water. This throws the party into chaos, and everybody starts to evacuate. Call's dad takes the children to the Magisterium, where he believes they will be safe. Tamara and Aaron both believe that the spy, who they think tried to kill Call, is from the Magisterium, so they both keep an eye on Call 24/7. But that night, when Call comes to bed he is attacked by an elemental and almost killed if Aaron didn't step in and send the elemental to the void using his Makar or chaos powers. They started to investigate themselves, and wanted to go down to the prison where they held the elementals. But to do that, they would have to break into Anastasia Tarquin's room, Alex's stepmother.

Books

1. The Iron Trial (September 9, 2014)
2. The Copper Gauntlet (September 1, 2015)
3. The Bronze Key (August 30, 2016)
4. The Silver Mask (September 1,2017)
5. The Enemy of Death '(September 7,2018)

Reception

The first book in the series, The Iron Trial, was well received. Kirkus Reviews praised the setting and "refreshingly nuanced" characters,^[4] and a Publishers Weekly starred review predicted that the "string of ominous revelations" would leave readers wanting more.^[5] Though Kirkus noted that the similarities to Harry Potter can be distracting, a reviewer at The Daily Telegraph wrote that the book "moves deftly into the gap" left by the JK Rowling series.^[6]

In 2012, Constantin Film acquired the rights to the book series.^[7] Black and Clare will adapt the script itself, and serve as executive producers.^[8] Constantin is one of the production companies behind another adaptation of Clare's, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.

References