Rand had shrugged, even that small movement hurting his aching head. “You know I’m always up for a good puzzle, and I enjoyed this one thoroughly. Besides, it gave me a sound excuse to escape all the construction. Kit should be finished by now.”
Now there was no reason for Rand not to go home to Oxford.
Except Lily.
Today, sunlight sparkled off the Thames, and the fresh air felt good in his lungs. Pounding along the banks, his feet seemed to be saying, show-her, show-her, show-her.
He laughed at himself; what a pathetic case he’d become. His next breath was a huge one, drawn in through both nose and mouth, meant to cleanse his body and head. But with it came a faint scent that made alarm slither down his spine.
Fire.
He stopped and turned, scanning the horizon. There it was. Slightly inland and to the west, dark smoke puffing up to smudge today’s clear blue sky.
Trentingham was over in that direction, he realized with a jolt of panic.
A moment later he was running faster than ever in his life.
YESTERDAY LILY had awakened with the sniffles and a scratchy throat, so she’d stayed home while Mum and Rose went out calling. Today, she’d awakened coughing and sneezing and could barely drag herself downstairs to tend to her menagerie. After completing her chores and nearly nodding into her breakfast, she’d crawled back into her night rail and collapsed into bed for a much needed nap, half expecting not to open her eyes again before dark.
But now she lay teetering on the brink of wakefulness, vaguely wondering what had roused her from sleep. She was tired, so tired her whole body ached, and she could tell from the color behind her closed lids that it was still midday. She rolled over, intending to drift off again, to seek more healing slumber—
Shouts. The stench of burning wood. Her eyes popped open, and she leapt from the bed and rushed to the window, her knees trembling.
Smoke billowed into the sky—light gray, dark gray, menacingly black—and below that, red and orange flames licked upward, rising from what looked like the soon-to-be-roofless barn.
Her animals were in there. Her heart racing, she grabbed a wrapper and struggled into it even as she ran for the door.
TWENTY-ONE
“YOU CANNOT GO back in there, my lord! It’s about to collapse! They’re only animals! Not worth your life!”
Rand ignored the frantic stable hand’s warning, waving him toward the long bucket brigade bringing water up from the river. Coughing, he set down the badger and quickly scanned the small collection of dazed creatures.
The hedgehog, the fawn, a rabbit, a weasel…Lily had said she was planning to release the rat, and he prayed that she had, because he hadn’t a chance of finding anything that small in the blinding smoke. But he’d seen a shadow in the grayness…the fox cub, he suddenly realized. The fox cub with the broken leg.
This one cannot run, he heard Lily say in his head. This one couldn’t survive without him.
He’d originally raced into the blazing barn because he’d needed to make sure Lily wasn’t in there. But once inside, he’d remembered her face, her gentle hands as she cared for her strays. He couldn’t leave them to die. Not the ones he’d already saved, and not the fox cub, either.
To more cries of “No!” and “Stay back!” he charged once more into the conflagration. What air remained was hotter than his first two trips, and drier, searing his lungs. Flames thundered, their orange, white, and blue tendrils licking up the wooden walls. Billowing black smoke threatened to blind him.
He stumbled toward Lily’s makeshift pens, coughs wracking his body as he peered through the haze, his eyes blurred with burning tears. Frantically he searched the enclosures, finding nothing. The blaze roared all around him, the sound filling his head, battering his senses.
Heat lashed him in scorching waves. He couldn’t see; he couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t stay in here a minute longer.
This one cannot run…
He pictured Lily saying the words, kneeling beside a pen, right there. Sucking in acrid air, he reached down blindly, his fingers encountering soft, trembling fur.
And then he was on his way out, the cub a gasping, hot bundle in his arms, both of them searching for cool, healing air. Just as he cleared the door, a mighty crash sounded behind him, and for one terrifying moment he seemed surrounded by raining sparks.
Then there was light, and he could breathe, and someone was pulling the cub from his arms. “Oh goodness, oh goodness, oh goodness,” someone cried, whacking him on the back. It made him cough more, and he tried to twist away, to run away, but he only stumbled. His eyes were still streaming and he couldn’t see, but whoever it was followed him.
“You’re on fire!” she screamed, and it was Lily’s voice, and he stood still and let her beat upon his back until at last she stopped.
“Oh goodness,” she said again and took him by the hand to pull him farther from the flames. They both collapsed to the ground. Rand rubbed his eyes, feeling grit, his head swimming in a haze of smoke and unreality.
He blinked until his vision cleared. He and Lily gazed at each other, ash and soot drifting around them and settling slowly to earth like a dark, eerie snowfall.
“You saved my animals,” she whispered, quiet tears rolling down her cheeks.
“You saved me,” Rand croaked through his raw throat. Still coughing, he reached a hand behind to touch his back, but it didn’t hurt enough to be burned.
“It was your hair.” Lily coughed, too. “Your hair was on fire.”
He reached higher then, to the ribbon that bound the queue he wore when he ran, and it was still there—but the hair below it felt wiry and crumbled in his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” she said, coughing some more.
He shrugged, still feeling dazed. “It
