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 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.
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.
Brianna looked at our house. “I assume this fire was caused by magic?”
Mom looked to Kate. Kate nodded, and Mom got to her feet. “It was,” Mom said.
Matthew and the other Afters formed a protective ring around Ethan. I crouched by the boy’s side, whether to guard him or because I wasn’t ready to stand with them, I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t safe to keep Ethan in our town, not now that we’d seen what his fire could do. Yet if I hadn’t used my magic on him, his magic might not have slipped beyond his control. This was my fault, too.
Hope’s mother, who’d joined the Council after Father had left, looked from Brianna to the circle of Afters. “We can’t possibly let this child stay here.” Hope’s mother had forced Hope’s little sister out of the house when she’d learned of her waterworking; the girl lived with Hope and her husband now.
“Three days,” said Charlotte’s dad, who’d been on the Council since before I was born. He was our town’s carpenter, and he hadn’t kicked Charlotte out of the house when he’d learned of her woodworking magic; he’d declared her his apprentice instead. “We agreed to let the stranger stay three days.”
Brianna made a disbelieving sound. “That was before we saw the harm he could do.”
Matthew growled softly and clenched his fists. Wind swirled the snow at Hope’s feet.
“We’re not killers of children.” Kate spoke with the same quiet conviction I heard from Matthew sometimes. “Not anymore.”
“Looks like Jayce gets the deciding vote.” Charlotte’s dad chuckled softly. “As usual.”
Jayce ran a hand over his bald head and looked to Kate. “You’re willing to take responsibility for this boy?”
“Absolutely,” Kate said.
Jayce leaned on his cane. “Three days, then,” he said. Brianna gave him a withering look.
Ethan began shivering. We needed to get him out of the cold. “He won’t be ready to go anywhere in three days,” Kate said.
“That’s as close as we’re likely to get to a fair compromise. It will have to serve.” Jayce glanced at our burned house, then at Mom. “Let us know if there’s anything you need, Tara.” Mom nodded.
The last of the light had left the sky, and yellow moonlight shone through layers of cloud. The townsfolk began breaking up into smaller groups. Kate turned back to us. “Let’s get him inside.”
“No way in
“He’ll stay with Matthew and me for now.” Kate laid a hand on Mom’s shoulder. “You and Liza will stay with us, too. Your place isn’t in any shape to sleep in tonight.”
Mom sighed. “I’m honestly not sure it’s safe for Ethan to be in anyone’s home.”
Kate pressed her lips together. “Only until we can clear out the shed. I’m no fool, Tara.”
“I know.” Mom smiled wearily. “You’re the least foolish person I know. If you and the children can handle getting Ethan moved, I’d best see to the house. Come with me, Liza. We have to talk.”
“Yes. We do.” We had to talk about how Mom needed to stop putting her life at risk. I followed her to the house, while behind me, Kate asked Matthew to get a stretcher. The temperature was dropping, and cold bit my ears and bare fingers.
Mom disappeared inside, but I stopped when I heard Charlotte’s cane tapping the snow, with a lighter sound than Jayce’s cane made. She’d lost her leg below the knee the year our town had tried to grow tomatoes, back when we were toddlers. Charlotte had crafted her wooden replacement leg herself, using, I now knew, her magic. It
