I turned slowly around. She climbed up into the loft, her wool riding cloak wrapped tight around her. A few blond strands fell loose from beneath her hood. She was younger than Hallgerd, older than me, with a stubborn set to her chin. My throat tightened as I realized who she must be. Thorgerd. Hallgerd’s daughter.
In my head, Hallgerd caught her breath. “I told her to stay home. I told her to stay safe.”
Thorgerd’s gray eyes swept over the loft to where Gunnar lay. Her father?—no, she’d called herself someone else’s daughter in the spellbook. Even so, she let out a little sigh. “It is over, then.” She walked over to Gunnar, knelt beside him, and gently shut his eyes. When she stood there was blood on her skirt. “I’m sorry, Mama.” She held out her hands to me. Strong hands—unlike mine, they didn’t shake.
She’s lost her mother, too. She just doesn’t know it yet. I took her hands—though mine were still stained with Gunnar’s blood—not knowing what else to do. Her skin felt cool against mine.
“So warm,” Thorgerd muttered. “You’re always warm, Mama, but today—” She drew me into a fierce hug. As I awkwardly hugged her back, I felt something leap from me to her, like a small electric shock. A trickle of the fire beneath my skin left me.
I drew sharply away. The phantom flames faded to bright afterimages, as if I’d looked too long into the sun. The roaring in my ears subsided to a whisper.
“If you dare to hurt her—” Hallgerd left the thought unfinished.
“Of course I wouldn’t hurt her!” I wouldn’t let the fire in me touch Thorgerd or anyone else if I could help it.
“Whom do you speak to? Your eyes—they are not my mother’s eyes.” Thorgerd’s gaze narrowed. “What thievery is this? Who are you?”
I looked down, unwilling to meet that gaze. I’d stolen her mother, even if I hadn’t meant to, just like Hallgerd had stolen mine. Not that losing Hallgerd was all that great a loss.
“Haley!” There was pain in Hallgerd’s voice. “I have never harmed my daughter. What do you take me for?”
“You killed my mother,” I said.
“It was not my—” Hallgerd’s voice fell silent.
Thorgerd pressed her lips together. “Sorcery.” She reached beneath her cloak for something—a knife?—then thought better of it. Her face hardened. “I know well enough my mother meddled with forces beyond this world. She did what she could to shelter me from them, but true dreams run in our family. She could only hide so much.”
Heat was building in me again, flames flickering at the edges of my sight. Sweat trickled beneath my dress. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorrow serves no one. Tell me what we need to do to call her back.”
I glanced at Gunnar’s lifeless body. “I don’t think she wants to come back.”
In my head, I could feel Hallgerd’s listening silence.
Thorgerd made a dismissive sound. “My mother is many things, but a coward is not one of them.”
“Haley. Give me the coin.” Hallgerd’s words were careful, measured. “I would leave you to your fate—do not doubt it—but I’ll not abandon my daughter. Return my life to me, and I’ll return yours to you. Let that serve as compensation enough for the lives we’ve both taken.”
I’d had no choice. I didn’t owe her any compensation—maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe she’d thought she had no choice, too. The air before me wavered. The roaring grew loud again, so loud. What would happen once the fire burst through my skin?
Even in my own time, that fire might destroy me yet. I could stay here. I could make Hallgerd’s daughter suffer as I’d suffered, knowing her mother was stolen from her—no. I couldn’t. Just like I couldn’t leave Ari and Jared—and Dad—to wonder forever what had happened to me.
“You’re right,” I told Thorgerd, though I could barely hear my own voice over the roaring. “Your mother is no coward.” I fumbled for the coin I’d dropped.
“Wait.” Thorgerd took my hands again. I felt more fire flowing from me to her. When she pulled her hands away, the heat beneath my skin had cooled a little more. At my startled look, Thorgerd smiled. “I know more of sorcery than my mother thinks. I would have taken some of the fire from her years ago, if only she’d let me. I am sorry I cannot take more.” She laid her hand on my shoulder. “Go now. Return to your own place, and give my mother back to me.”
“Thank you.” I picked up the coin. To Hallgerd I said, “Swear to me you won’t set your fire loose once I’m gone, not if you can help it.”
Hallgerd laughed bitterly. “You control the spell. The fire follows you, not me. I give up much because of you, Haley.”
Too much fire—but better that fire stay with me than remain behind with Hallgerd. I would at least try to control it, and I still wasn’t sure Hallgerd would. I drew my hand back to throw the coin.
The air blurred before me, and I saw the path once more. Far away, at the end of that path, I saw a girl—myself, only my eyes were gray, not brown—kneeling before the bowl of Freki’s blood and chanting.
Not really me. Hallgerd. She reached out her hand.
“A gift!” I called, and threw the coin to her. The path came into sharper focus. On it I saw Thorgerd’s daughters and granddaughters and great-granddaughters. The path branched—not all Thorgerd’s descendants were my ancestors—but the branches that didn’t lead to me disappeared into the distance.
Sunlight glinted off the burning silver as it flew. Hallgerd caught the coin, and that light shone through her fingers.
“Goodbye, Haley. I leave you to your life, and I return to what remains of mine.”
The light pulled me along the path, and the fire beneath my skin came with me, all of it, flaring hotter once more. My skin seemed suddenly thin, my hair and limbs and thoughts all made of fire. For a heartbeat I knew the fire would destroy me and burn through to the wide world, right here, right now. But then a green-eyed girl—Thorgerd’s daughter—grabbed my hands as I passed her. A spark of fire leaped from me to her. An older woman with a long blond braid did the same, and then another woman with tangled curls falling into her face.
One by one they held out their hands, all of my ancestors, each of them taking a spark—or more than a spark—of power from me, bleeding the fire away. How did they know?
Take some of the fire if you can, but do not take too much. Thorgerd had told them so, in her spellbook. For a thousand years she and her descendants had passed down everything I’d need. Hallgerd must have told her daughter what had happened after all—or maybe Thorgerd had figured it out. True dreams run in our family.
The roaring turned to anger. “Free!” the fire spirits screamed. “How dare you deny us? We would be free!”
I felt the fire in me slowly lessen from the firestorm it was to a mere bonfire. The roaring in my ears—the voices of the fire creatures—turned to whispers. I still burned hot, too hot, but the fire was only enough to destroy me now, not the world around me.
“Thank you,” I told each of my ancestors in turn. “Thank you.”
My own grandmother’s grandmother took my hands, taking a spark of my fire. Almost enough—but the bonfire burned on. My great-grandmother and grandmother looked at me with confusion, concern—but they’d grown up thousands of miles from Thorgerd and her warnings. They took nothing from me.
“We cannot have the world,” the fire spirits whispered, “but we can destroy you. We will destroy you.” Fire caressed my face, my arms, my hair. It didn’t hurt anymore, which scared me more than any pain. At least the fire will consume only me.