He jerked to a stop, just as I’d commanded. I felt the cold thread of my magic stretching between us.
Fear crept into his eyes. “You did that before, too, didn’t you? Just like she did.”
“Like who did?” I walked past Ethan, putting myself between him and the stairs. Matthew followed with the water basin.
“Let me go.” Smoke rose from Ethan’s bandages. “Let me go or I’ll kill you, I swear it.”
“Liza.” There was a warning in Matthew’s voice.
I ignored it, keeping my gaze and my magic focused on Ethan. “Like you killed Ben?”
Flames burst through Ethan’s bandages. The magic binding him to me burned away as charred linen drifted to the floor. The boy drew his hands together, cupping a ball of fire within.
Matthew flung the water at him. The fire hissed but didn’t go out. The scent of damp coals filled the air.
Matthew held the basin in front of us like a shield. “Easy, Ethan. We won’t hurt you.”
“You won’t, maybe.” Ethan’s dark eyes reflected the fire he held. I felt its heat against my skin. Flames cast light onto the basin Matthew held. Brightness filled my sight—No. Not now. This was no time for visions. I tried to turn away, but it was too late. I had no choice but to see—
Cloaked figures following a river toward a town. One of them—a girl my age in a cloak the bright green of mulberry leaves—hesitated a moment, drawing back her hood to reveal long clear hair and bright silver eyes. Faerie eyes, I thought, and then I saw—
Flames consuming the town’s houses. Snow sizzled as burning timbers crashed to the ground. Smoke billowed up and I saw—
Ethan watching the houses burn, the clear-haired girl’s hand on his arm. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. Neither of them moved to stop the flames. Neither did the younger children arrayed around them. Those flames burned brighter, and by their glow I saw—
Fire leaping from cupped hands to catch at a doorframe. Heat pulsed against my clothes and skin as wood burned—
Metal clattered as the basin hit the ground. Matthew grabbed my arm, and I realized these flames came from no vision. They were real, and they wreathed the doorway to Mom’s room.
Chapter 4
Ethan stood amid the flames, fire streaming from his hands to the doorway, from the doorway into the room behind him. The burned-plastic smell of melting nylon filled the air. Smoke billowed around us, clogging my throat as Matthew pulled me farther from the door.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Mom ran to us, her body hazy through the smoke. “Get out. Both of you.” She pushed past to grasp Ethan’s nightshirt. His collar burst into flame, and Mom staggered back.
I pulled free of Matthew and grabbed my mother, coughing all the while. Heat burned against my skin. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
Mom fought me. “I won’t”—she was coughing, too—“lose another firestarter.”
Ethan’s sleeves ignited, and flames raced up his arms. He threw his head back and laughed. Mom struggled toward him, though Matthew, too, had hold of her now.
I wouldn’t lose her. “Mom. Tara. Come here.” Mom stiffened in my grasp. “Come with me, Mom.” I choked on the words, but I felt the power in them. I dragged her down stairs I could barely see through the smoke, and this time she didn’t fight me. She couldn’t fight, not while my magic held her. Matthew staggered after us as we ran through the living room and into the open air. Cold slammed into me as I stumbled outside and down a shorter set of stairs. I drew gasping breaths.
Mom fell, coughing, to her knees just a few feet from the house. I crouched beside her. Smoke billowed from our upper windows and drifted over pink clouds that streaked the twilight sky. Matthew and I helped Mom to her feet. She took a step toward the house, then stopped, trembling. My magic held her still. Her back went rigid. “Let me go.”
Through the smoke, the windows glowed with orange light. I wasn’t about to let Mom back in there. “Stay here, Mom.” I left her with Matthew and ran toward the open door.
“Ethan!” My throat was raw with smoke and calling. I wasn’t sure he would hear, but I felt a cold thread of power pulsing between us once more. “Ethan, come here!”
Ethan burst through the doorway and down the outside stairs, his nightshirt aflame. Matthew ran past me, threw him to the ground, and rolled him in the snow. Ethan wept as the flames went out, and the magic between us snapped so fast I stumbled.
Snow began to fall. Ethan gasped and staggered to his feet, his charred nightshirt falling away from his unburned skin. His gaze focused on the orange glow in the windows. “Not again,” he whispered, and he raised his blistered, bleeding hands to the sky.
Fire burst through the windows. It flowed, like a molten waterfall, toward Ethan’s palms, and it sank through his skin the way water soaked into dry earth. All at once, the fire went out. Ethan took a single step forward and fell, face-first, into the snow.
His back and arms, which had been unharmed moments before, were now a mess of red blisters and fire-blackened skin. Snowflakes sizzled as they hit his charred flesh. Matthew and I tried to sit him up. He groaned and curled away from us, pulling his bleeding hands over his head. Kate ran to us with a blanket.
I was suddenly aware of the townsfolk ringed around us. They carried water buckets and ladders, as if ready to try to put the fire out. A short distance away, Hope’s little sister stared at the house, hands outstretched. Hope tapped the younger girl’s shoulder, and she let her hands drop. The snow stopped. Hope’s sister was a waterworker. She’d been trying to put the fire out, too.
Only there was no fire, not anymore. Kate looked at Ethan, frowned, and drew the blanket away, spreading it on the ground in front of him. The boy’s chest was blackened as well, and the touch of wool on his burns would hurt him more than the cold. A burned-meat smell drifted through the air, strong as the smell of charred wood from my house.
“Let me go, Liza.” Mom’s voice came from behind me. I’d forgotten she stood there, my magic yet holding her. I turned. Her hands and face were blackened with soot, and her sweater was damp with melting snow.
“Let me go so I can see to him.” Mom’s voice shook.
She was all right. I let out a long breath and felt the magic between us fall away. Mom stumbled forward; I caught her. She flinched as if she were the one who’d been burned.
“Mom?”
She backed away, eyes wide and frightened. “Not you, Lizzy. Please not you.” Her shoulders trembled as she knelt by Ethan’s side, and I knew I’d get no thanks for saving her.
“You should have let the house burn,” she whispered to the boy. “You shouldn’t have taken the fire into yourself.”
Was that what Ethan had done? He moaned. Was that why the fire he’d called out of our house had burned him, while having his clothes aflame had not?
“So this is your stranger.” Brianna’s voice was harsh. I looked up and saw that Kyle’s mother stood with the rest of the Council, watching us.
Kate stood to face them. Mom kept whispering to Ethan. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. What was wrong with her?
From among the townsfolk, others moved to stand with us, dim figures in the fading light: Hope and her husband and her little sister. Seth and his younger sister. Charlotte, who was a year older than me. Other Afters a year or two younger—all but Kyle’s brother, Johnny.