Breaths came, shallow and hurried and not bringing in near enough air, and my head felt light. When I stood and leaned toward the window frame, I didn't even notice the shards sticking up until they bit into my palms.
Pain joined the miserable cacophony as I struggled to get myself and my satchel through the opening. With the world spinning around me, I could barely get my hands up to brace my fall. I tumbled face-first into the snow and rolled over just in time to see Sybil scrambling out after me.
She collapsed on top of me, and the impact of her weight drove the last bit of air from my lungs. I sprawled in the snow, rapidly melting against my back, trying to inhale and failing while Sybil worked her way upright and Kit clambered into the open.
He hit the ground beside us in a tumble, and when I turned toward him, I saw the closed cellar doors and gray clouds of smoke billowing from underneath them. Everyone was standing then but me, and they looked impossibly tall. Like trees in the forest blacking out the sun.Everythingwas blacker, darker, as if the smoke was even in my eyes. I blinked and swallowed and finallybreathed, just as Kit looped his arms under mine and hauled me up.
I was barely aware of him dragging me. My boot heels cut tracks in the snow as we moved away from the mission, away from the fire. Toward what, I didn’t care, as long as he kept going. I squeezed my eyes shut because the mission looked too much like the barn as the fire finally reached the thatched roof.
My hands throbbed. Theyburned, and I was afraid to look. Worried I would see my flesh melting, or hear Sayla screaming, or feel Father and Mother pulling us apart.
In the cold.
In the snow.
In flames.
13
Kit
By the time I got Penny and the Symbiarch a safe distance from the burning mission, Anders was well on his way down the road away from Wendwood. The Symbiarch tracked my line of sight, and her soot-smudged forehead crinkled.
There were too many things to worry about at once, foremost of whichshouldhave been Penny. He was limp with his back against me while I supported him with my arms clenched around his chest, and his gasping breaths were interrupted by intermittent coughs. But the fear that the militia might be close enough to chase Anders down made the top of my list of concerns just long enough for me to realize he’d turn the two of us in, too, if he were caught.
“Is there anyone to go after him?” I asked as I tried unsuccessfully to get Penny on his feet.
I was almost ashamed of my relief when the Symbiarch shook her head. Catching Anders would mean recovering the supplies we’d taken, but as much as I wished we could give it all back, I would rather live long enough to make it up to Wendwood when everything was over.
“We’re at the edge of the ward,” she explained. “The nearest militia outpost is at least half an hour’s ride the other direction.”
With that potential disaster out of mind, my attention shifted back to Penny. He was panting hard, and when it became clear his legs were too weak to hold him, I turned us so that the fire was no longer in his line of sight and eased him down to his knees in the snow. When I settled in front of him, his wide eyes cast about wildly. I wasn’t sure if his shivering was because of the cold and his lack of cloak, or from fear.
“You’re okay, sweetheart.” I slid my hands up his arms, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You’re safe?—”
“Where’s Sayla?!” He twisted toward the fire, and only my grip stopped him from making a break for it. “I need to get her out!”
I was certain the mission had been empty but for the two of them, and we were at least two days’ journey from Eastcliff. There was no reason for Sayla to be in Wendwood. I was about to ask what he was talking about when it registered in my own worried mind and I understood what was happening.
“Sayla’s not here, Pen.” I tried to catch his eyes, but he refused to look away from the fire. “She’s in Eastcliff. Do you remember where we are? We’re in Wendwood. This is a mission, not your barn.”
It hurt to see him so blindly panicked, taken back to the horrific accident that had left him and his sister maimed. I hated that he was reliving the most painful, frightening moments of his life, and there was little I could do to make it better.
Penny strained against my hold, and I tugged on his arms to try to turn him toward me. “I promise you, she isn’t in there. No one is, because you got the Symbiarch out safe, too. You did good.”
His gaze moved to the old woman standing apart from us, and some of the fight left him. “Sayla’s safe?” he croaked.
“Everyone is safe,” I told him. “No one got hurt. We got out in time.”
He turned back and his eyes raked over me. When he was assured that I was unharmed, he slumped, still trembling, but at least he was facing me. If I could catch his full attention, I could pull him out of this.
“We’re okay.” I slid my hands down to his and squeezed, hoping the pain from his wounds would break him the rest of the way out of the nightmare he was mired in.
He whimpered, and guilt ate at me as I relaxed my grip. His eyes, swimming with tears and rimmed in red, finally met mine. But there was renewed fear there, not the return to the present I’d been hoping for.
“It happened again,” he sobbed. “My hands…” His gaze dipped down only to jerk back up before it even got past my chin. “How did it happen again…?”
I realized too late that the pain in his hands was making this worse, not better. He was breathing even faster now, short, shallow pants that left him looking faint. Lost in the memory of fresh burns and months of agony.
