“What’s happening out there?” I ask.
Misha has that faraway look in his eyes that tells me he’s already inside the minds of our friends and allies, calling for help.
“Eli told me to come tell you it’s raining fire,” he says.
Leta frowns and glances over her shoulder at him. “What do you mean it’s—”
The next boom is so loud, my ears feel like they’re bleeding, and before I can pull in a breath, there’s another—right on top of us—and the ceiling is falling in, rolling flames pouring in with it.
“Get out of here!” I scream to the boy. Then I turn to Leta. “We need to move the children.”
Misha grabs my arm. “Abriella, go. Lark said you need to run. ”
I shake my head. “Not without the children.” The room is heating as fast as an oven as the flames race across the ceiling. How many times will I live this nightmare—the fire, the falling beams, the suffocating smoke that presses in too fast?
I scoop up the nearest child, holding him to my chest, then throw out my power, wrapping the rest of these innocents in a cocoon of shadow to protect them from the flames. “We have to get them out.”
Misha hoists a child onto each shoulder, and Leta grabs a small girl from the bed closest to the door. Together, we run toward the exit.
Outside is pure chaos. Blazing balls of fire fly through the sky, turning thatched straw roofs into kindling. People scream and run in every direction, trying to escape the fires that seem to be everywhere. White-bodied water fae emerge from the river and redirect the water, blasting streams onto the burning homes. One stops to douse the flames that are burning a young merchant’s dress. The merchant drops to her knees, wet and sobbing.
“The infirmary,” I shout to a water fae who’s emerged from her river home, her iridescent scales glistening. “Can you work to control the fire there while we get the children out?”
She doesn’t bother to answer but goes running toward the building, running on webbed feet as she whistles for others to follow.
“Over here!” a woman calls, throwing her arms out. A shimmering dome the size of a small house snaps up around her. “The fire can’t penetrate this shield.”
I shift the child in my arms and head toward the dome. “Can you hold it?” I ask the faerie who’s inside.
She nods. “I’ll try.”
I lower the child to the ground inside her shield and turn back for another.
Someone grabs me from behind, and strong male arms wrap around my center. “Don’t go back in there,” Misha shouts. “This court needs you.”
I growl, and I dissolve into shadow—into nothing—and dart back into the fray, weaving like mist through panicked people as I return to the children. It’s hotter now, and smoke is thick in the air. I won’t let myself think about how helpless these children are, how much smoke they’ve drawn into their lungs without knowing it. I won’t let myself remember what it’s like to be trapped and helpless while fire burns around you.
I snap back into solid form so fast my stomach heaves, but I don’t slow down. I grab two children this time—twin toddlers who are deadweight in their unnatural sleep—and I hold my breath as I race back out through the smoke to the safety of the shield.
With every breath, I draw from that seemingly endless well of power, reinforcing the cool cocoon of shadow that I have wrapped around the children, praying it can hold when the flames grow too hot.
When I return, there’s a boy lumbering toward the exit, a child thrown over each shoulder, Misha right behind him.
The boy stumbles outside and coughs fitfully, swaying on his feet. “You can’t go back in there,” he says.
“It’s too bad,” Misha agrees. “Let the water fae smother the flames before you go back in.”
I shake my head. “I won’t leave them.”
Misha’s eyes blaze. “You go in there, and you might not come back out.”
I push past him into the thick smoke.
Misha’s right. The building is falling. Inside, the walls burn bright and the smoke crowds every inch of the air. Outside, people are screaming. The cacophony of destruction fades into the back of my mind while I scan the infirmary, where the only sound is the snap and hiss of the fire and the creaking of the weakening ceiling joists. I weave my way through the flames, gritting my teeth through the pain as they lick at my skin.
The last two children are holding hands in their sleep, a small girl and her older brother. I couldn’t carry them both on my best day, but right now, already dizzy from the smoke, my lungs burning, I know the odds are stacked against us.