by Katie Cross
The back door was open, allowing a current of air to fan the flames. Ijet must have escaped that way. Relieved, I whirled around, prepared to transport away when a pitiful cry came from the stairwell. I stumbled forward to find a small foot peeking out of the smoke on the fourth stair. A small boy, no older than four, stirred, coughing pitifully when I pulled on his leg and brought him into my arms.
“Hang on!” I cried, blinking against the sting of the smoke in my eyes. “Hang on!”
I slung him half over my shoulder, grateful for all the stones Merrick had made me carry during training, and hurried into the street. I set the little boy down and tapped the side of his face.
“Come on!” I muttered. “Wake up little one!”
He revived with a shuddering gasp. “Where’s Da!” He rubbed his bloodshot eyes with his fists, choking on the smoke. “Da!”
My heart clenched. So Ijet was still there. Not wanting the little boy to wander the streets toward the fire, I grabbed a nearby stick and handed it to him.
“Hold this, will you? Don’t let it go until I come back and tell you it’s safe. This is very important. I need you to hold it and give it to your father when I come back. Do you understand?”
He hesitated, lip blubbering, throat rasping, before finally taking the stick. I dashed back into the building, ignoring the open flames shooting through the windows one floor above. I wouldn’t have much time before the house collapsed.
Halfway up, about two stairs beyond where the little boy had lain was another foot. I grabbed it and felt the calves of a boy of six or seven. After slinging his limp body over my shoulders, I struggled blind to the front door under his weight. The four-year-old started to sob when I appeared with his brother.
“Bianca!” a voice called. “Bianca!”
Just as I set the second boy down, a familiar head of dark curly hair and bright eyes appeared. Brecken!
“Help me!” I grabbed his arm when he jogged up to me. “Help me save a witch inside. Quickly!”
“Let’s make it fast. This building is going to fall.”
Tears poured down my face from the sting of the smoke, which had thickened as the houses around us caught fire. I took Brecken’s hand, and we plunged into the hazy room together. A crash from above shook the rafters when I scrambled up the stairs on my hands and knees, eyes slitted nearly shut. We made it all the way to the top of the stairs before I saw the flames. In their dancing yellow light I could just make out a lumpy form on the ground. Ijet. Above us, a hole showed a glimpse of night sky, billowing smoke in great plumes. A burning board lay across Ijet’s back. I scrambled the rest of the way, trying to kick the board free with my bare foot.
“Use a spell!” I cried, but no matter how hard we tried to lift the board off Ijet with magic, it didn’t budge. Together we kicked, pulled, prodded, and pushed until it rolled off, nearly burning the bottoms of my feet.
“I’ll take his shoulders,” Brecken shouted, his voice muffled by a scarf I recognized as Camille’s. “You take his legs. Magic isn’t working!”
Coughing and sputtering, my chest constricting from whatever oppressive weight lay on the world, I grabbed Ijet’s ankles, and together we worked him down the stairs. The ceiling on our right collapsed, sending a spray of ash onto the backs of my arms.
We struggled into the street to find Jackie had returned and held her smallest brother in her long, caramel arms. She let out a piercing shriek when she saw us bearing Ijet between us. Three other Guardians appeared out of the vapors.
“We’ve got to go!” they shouted, taking Ijet from us. “This whole area is in flame!”
A streak of blood ran down Jackie’s trembling face. Her hemline was singed all the way to her knees. Red, bubbling blisters covered her legs.
“Jackie,” I whispered in disbelief. “Can you walk to the castle?”
She nodded, pressing her full lips together. Her usual feline grace didn’t fail her, even under extreme stress and pain. The two Guardians gathered Ijet, Brecken picked up the seven-year-old, and I took the smaller boy from Jackie.
“Come on,” I said, cradling him. “Let’s take you to safety.”
A rush of air from above startled me, and I glanced up to see a red dragon soar past. Sanna rode atop it as it flew, maintaining an even speed without flapping her wings and aggravating the flames further. A mist appeared in their wake, and the fire targeted by the glowing spray calmed, settling into the small lick of a campfire. Sanna disappeared from sight as the dragon flew up to change its direction. In the distance, I thought I saw Nicolas riding the blue, a Protector at his back, no doubt trying to use similar magic to subdue the fire. I pressed my palm to the little boy’s chest and whispered a healing blessing as I jogged behind Brecken and Jackie. His ragged breathing calmed, easing into the wispy breath of a sleeping child.
My heart pumped with fright, giving me strength to wade through Chatham City, one arm under Jackie, the other holding her brother, until we made it down the long road to the castle. The shadows of circling dragons swooped over us every so often. Despite my poor history with them, their presence comforted me.
Stella had already set up cots, medical stations, and food in the lower bailey, and Apothecaries from all over the Network transported in to help. Servants, called from their homes or rooms, bustled around in organized pandemonium with Mrs. L at the head. It was too cold outside to allow witches to sleep in the baileys, even though the fire felt as if it would never leave my skin.
“Bianca!” a shrill voice called. I glanced up to see Leda waving her pale arms frantically in the torchlight. Jansson stood just behind her, assisting a gypsy with burns on her face.
“Look, Jackie, there’s Leda,” I said. “She’ll help.”
Jackie blinked, glancing at where I pointed, but didn’t seem to understand. Blood continued to fall from a swelling knot on her head.
Leda rushed forward. Clearly she’d been roused from sleep as well—her hair was loosely bound and she wore an old dress—but she barked out commands like a Captain.
“Put Jackie there. Brecken, put the little boy … there.” Leda used magic to summon another cot small enough for the four-year-old. A second bed for the older child popped up next to Jackie’s. “Put her brothers by her.”
Jackie lay back on the mattress and stared at the sky, mute. The stars shone a bright, mocking white. Apothecary Assistants rushed forward, pulling packets of herbs from their inner pockets before swarming the children. The witch examining Jackie murmured under his breath while grinding greenish herbs in his palm, then held his cupped hand in front of her face. The herbs rose in a cloud, swirled around her nostrils, and slipped inside her with every breath she pulled in. Finally her muscles relaxed. I backed away, grateful to see her still alive.
“I’m going to go help with others,” I told Leda, giving her a questioning glance. “See anything to avoid?” She paused, blinking, then shook her head to clear my future possibilities.
“You’ll help many,” she said, rendering me grateful again for her curse of foresight. While nowhere near as strong as Isadora’s ability as a Watcher, she still came in handy often. “Just stay away from Gilly Street.”
Brecken and I transported back to Chatham City. A dark weight hung in the air where the smoke continued to spread, filtering through houses and alleys with a haunting presence. We supported old women, carried young babies, and helped injured witches back to the lower bailey to receive care. The night slipped away, lost in wailing and looks of stunned disbelief. The terrible smell of burned hair clung to my nostrils.
The gradual dawn of morning signaled the end of the hellacious night. The fire had settled for the most part. It burned on but destroyed only those homes it had already touched. I stood alone on the stairs leading from the high bailey to the castle’s main doors, watching the medical interventions below, replaying and analyzing each moment of the night one at a time, the way Papa taught me.
You have to deal with frightening exp
eriences right after they happen, B, he’d always said. You might shake or get sick, but that’s okay. It means your body is dealing with it. Deal with it. Don’t put it off.
My hair hung limp on my shoulders. The cloth I’d torn from my skirt hung around my neck, stained gray. Smoke had saturated my clothes to the degree that I knew it would never come out, not even under Reeves’s talented ministrations. I’d have to throw the dress away or finish the deed and burn it.
“You were a mad woman out there tonight,” Merrick said, walking up behind me. “I saw you helping Brecken and the Guardians.”
I glanced at him in fear. “Don’t tell—”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell your father, but you know he’s going to find out somehow.”
“Papa’s going to kill me,” I replied woodenly, and because I felt so close to cracking, I smiled. Merrick mirrored my own sordid amusement, and seeing him made my throat tighten. The sick hollow in my stomach grew and nausea overtook me in one long wave.
“Come on,” Merrick said, grabbing my shoulder. “You need to vomit. You’ll feel better.”
He hauled me to my feet and shoved me toward the stairs leading to the top of the Wall. I couldn’t speak because I would have emptied my stomach right there, so I kept my mouth clenched and breathed through my nostrils, trying to huff off the scent of the dying, who lay under white sheets in the corner of the high bailey.
Once I arrived at the edge of the Wall, I leaned over it and vomited, retching until my ribs hurt. Then I pressed my burning cheek against the cold stone and closed my eyes, swallowing back the taste of acid in my mouth. Merrick stood next to me, a steady hand splayed between my shoulder blades.
“Better?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “Thanks.”
I straightened and met his gaze. Smoke blackened his face, highlighting his reddened eyes. Bloodstains marred his shirt and torn breeches.
“Reeves sent you this,” Merrick said, and a small slip of paper appeared between two of his fingers. “I went to the apartment to find Derek, and Reeves asked me to pass this on.”
“Papa’s all right?” I asked eagerly, feeling a weight lift off my chest. Merrick rolled his eyes.
“Jikes, B. He’s only the most talented and powerful witch in the Central Network. A little Almorran fire isn’t going to frighten him.”
“It is Almorran?”
“I think so,” he replied, looking out past the castle. “I’ve never felt anything like it, not since Mabel attacked with the Clavas.”
I unfolded the paper with relief. Talented and powerful or not, Papa wasn’t indestructible.
Sustenance awaits, read Reeves’s note.
The idea of eating breakfast, engaging in something so normal and unassuming in such a nightmarish haze, sounded wonderful. The usual tremors of shock that normally moved through my body after enduring something so harrowing had already started to subside. Watching Mama die and fighting Miss Mabel twice must have trained me well.
I glanced up at Merrick. “Hungry?” I asked.
“Starving,” he said, keeping a hand on my shoulder and steering me toward the castle. “Let’s go, little fire girl. I want to hear all about your night.”
I’ll Fight
“I’m not sad to see it gone,” Jackie admitted a week later, staring at the charred remains of the gypsy community in Chatham City. Fifty witches had died, forty of them gypsies. “It was just slums, really. What did we lose?”
“Your home,” I said.
Her full, dark lips pressed together in silence.
The day was thick with low pearly clouds and the threat of snow, heralding the third and final month of winter. The tips of my fingers had nearly turned numb. Winter in the Central Network felt like icicles driving into the marrow of the bone. I wore a heavy cloak, but it afforded me little warmth.
The breath of frigid winter air had cooled the rubble over the past week, so I kicked aside a few boards, searching for something. I didn’t know what I expected to find, but hoped for tokens of the life that had once thrived here. If it had been so easy for the Factios to destroy so many lives, why couldn’t it happen elsewhere? Was the rest of the Central Network in as much danger? And the dream I’d had before the fire. Had that been premonitory, or just a strange coincidence?
Let my daughter go.
I shuddered and turned my thoughts.
Marten, who had worked with the gypsies ever since Mildred’s reign began, and Papa were meeting with Nana and Ijet, amongst the other gypsy leaders. Although Jackie and I weren’t allowed in the meeting, I already knew what they’d be talking about: the departure of the gypsies from Chatham City. While I hoped Marten could use his diplomatic powers of persuasion to convince them to stay, I doubted it.
Papa was still livid with me—clearly not resigned to the inevitability that I’d always make dangerous decisions—for leaving the room against his orders, which is why he’d banned me from the meeting. So Jackie and I meandered restlessly through the wreckage together.
“It was a horrible place ta live, really,” Jackie said, and we started moving through the rubble again. Unlike the rest of the gypsies, Jackie paid careful attention to her accent because she wanted to present a professional demeanor. But blips of her Chatham City gypsy accent slipped through every now and then. “Burning it probably did Chatham City a favor, getting rid of disease. At least now we could rebuild.”
“Will you?” I asked, peering inside a darkened house.
“No,” she said. “We won’t.”
Our feet left tracks in a layer of snow mixed with soot.
“Are all of you going to leave?”
“Not yet. Nan and I will go back north, to the land we received in the Mansfeld Pact. Many of our witches still live there. It’s safe. It’s home.”
I stopped to look her in the eye. “If all of you leave, the Factios will take over Chatham City. Chatham Castle is vulnerable to attack.”
Jackie shot me an acerbic look that stung. “If they attack the castle,” she retorted with an edge of bitterness in her voice. “Only your father thinks they will. Their vendetta seems to be against the gypsies.”
“He’s not the only one,” I replied, managing to keep the snap out of my tone by sheer willpower. “Tiberius, Marten, Zane, myself, Stella, the list of those who agree goes on and on.”
“And all of them are politicians,” she said. “All witches with a reason to profit from a war.”
I clenched my fists. Profit from war? Hadn’t the Factios just burned down her home? Hadn’t she seen the red A marked in the sky? And yet she quoted something Clive had said in the article the Chatterer published. Profiting from war sounded so ludicrous I nearly laughed.
“What about Angelina?” I asked. “At the very least, we know she’s leading the Factios. Maybe she has something to do with all the other Networks as well. Maybe Angelina is the one pulling them together against us.”
Jackie scoffed. “I think Angelina is a myth, a front for someone else.”
“What?”
“No one has ever seen her, not even the Factios members that work for her. She supposedly burns red A’s into storefronts—”
“Or cities,” I muttered.
“Or cities,” she conceded reluctantly, “and stirs up violence and trouble here in the Central Network, but only takes credit for her deeds through her reputation. I think she’s fake. Made up. Just like your father’s predictions regarding war.”
I sucked in a deep breath, wounded. Why would Papa make up such a thing? Did they really believe he wanted a war?
“Look, I didn’t mean it like that,” Jackie said with a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t nice ta say. I just … I don’t get it, ya know?”
My hands relaxed. Jackie had just lost her home. For her, the fire wasn’t just a harrowing experience—it uprooted her whole life. Although I didn’t understand it, I at least knew that her anger didn’t really have anything to do with Papa: She was scared. Pa
pa was an easy target to blame for all she’d lost. I forced myself not to take offense at her blatant honesty. Besides, so many witches disagreed with Papa now; I was part of a small minority of believers.
“What don’t you get?” I asked, forcing an even tone. She relaxed, and her sharp, worried gaze softened. We started walking again, to my relief. My energy felt less pent up that way.
“Why should the gypsies stay in Chatham City and give our lives to protect your castle? Mildred’s dead. She’s the only one that’s been good to us, and even she let us wallow in that poverty-ridden mess without help these past years.”
“Do you still see Chatham City as something that doesn’t belong to you?” I asked in surprise. “Is Chatham not your castle and your city as well?”
Jackie shook her head. “No. It never has been, despite how much Mildred tried to work us into the culture. We’ll never belong here, Bianca. We’re freaks. We’ve tried for over sixty years now, and witches still fear us. It would be better if we went back to the north where we know we’re safe.”
This girl bore no resemblance to the fearless Jackie who had once wanted to represent the gypsies in the Network. This was a shell of a girl, a scared young woman. A witch needing courage again.
“What about your dream to be the first gypsy in politics?” I asked, annoyed that she would give up on a goal that had been her whole focus less than two years earlier. Wouldn’t Angelina really win the war if witches started giving up and going away? Expelling the gypsies from Chatham City wouldn’t start or end anything, but it would represent one more chink in our armor, one more weak spot to exploit.
“That was never going to happen,” she said. I hated Angelina. I hated what she’d done to my friend. The lives she’d taken. The hopelessness she’d sown without even showing her face. How powerful must she be to cause such chaos?
Jackie faced forward without looking at me. Her forehead still had a swollen bump on top, marked by stitches keeping her skin together. The scar would be an eternal reminder of the horror of that night.
“There is still so much to fight for, Jackie,” I whispered. “Don’t give up just because things have become scary. They’re about to get much worse.”
