Someone slaps me, so hard I jerk upright, mind still on fire, breath panting smoke into the air. Ash hovers beside me, Rena clinging to my hand, though she looks terrified and ready to run.
I cough out another puff of smoke before gagging on the taste. Ash thumps me between the shoulder blades while I bend in half over my knees, finding myself lying on the floor.
Rena blubbers a moment, trying to speak, but indecipherable as her voice rises to a wail. Ash glares at her, snapping her fingers in my cousin’s face, breaking her fearful spiral.
“Enough!” Rena whimpers, lower lip catching between her teeth, brown eyes huge as they lock on Ash. “Hush, you.” My aunt returns her attention to me, examining me carefully with her sharp blue gaze. “How do you feel?” She grips my chin in hand, turning my face from side to side while I catch my breath, looking back and forth between my eyes with intensity I’ve never seen in her before. “Can you talk?”
I nod, swallow bitterness that can only be ashes, and pull free of her hand. “I’m okay.” My words are dulled by the soreness in my throat. I feel like I’ve swallowed live coals, but lived to tell about it. Fire burns in my belly, begging to be free.
“No,” Ash snaps. “You’re not.”
“Zo-eee.” Rena drags out my name in her quivering voice, high pitched from her fright. “You were burn-ing.”
I squeeze her hand to comfort her and try to stand. Ash helps me while Rena steps aside, still weeping, hands wringing in front of her. I look down at myself, at the skim of gray on my skin, the pattern of burn on the carpet, and shudder off a fall of flakes that float gently to the floor.
Ash snaps her fingers at Rena again. “Make yourself useful. Water.”
Rena just stares at her, still crying with growing volume. I push Ash aside and go for the pitcher myself, pouring a shaking glass and downing it in three gulps. My throat feels better, but my insides are sizzling still and I wonder if the sensation of burning from the core out will ever go away.
So close. I turn with a fresh glass, sipping this time, the tremor in my hand stilling enough I don’t spill it all over myself. Ash glares like I broke some rule she set while Rena quivers and weeps.
“What the hell were you doing?” Ash’s voice shakes, her own stress finally showing.
“I had to know.” I lower the glass as her eyes flicker sideways to Rena. But I don’t care who knows now. The truth will be coming out, just as soon as I pull myself into order and can confront my grandmother. “I saw the truth, Ash. All of it.”
She hisses at me, but not before Rena stills and looks back and forth between us, both hands rising to wipe tears from her face. I catch the calculated look in my cousin’s eyes, know she’s over her worry for me as quickly as she’s caught scent of a juicy bit of story she can tell.
“What truth?” She meets my eyes, her curiosity a living thing in her gaze. How have I missed how petty and small Rena is? Are they all like her? If so, no matter what I say or bring to them, my family is not strong enough to do anything about it.
“Mind your own business.” Ash steps between me and Rena, cutting off my view of her just as anger flashes over my cousin’s face. My aunt’s temper is sharper, though.
Silence. Her voice ricochets in my head. If you know what’s good for you.
I know she’s the wrong person to rebel against, that Ash may be the only one on my side, but I’m tired of carrying this alone. She must see the defiance in me, because she spins and grabs Rena by the arm, forcefully propelling the girl toward my door. I open my mouth to protest, try to take a step, feel my knees buckle and realize I just don’t have the energy to fight right now.
Rena squeals in frustration as Ash pushes her through the open door. I look away as my aunt slams it in the younger Oracle’s face. The chair is close, so I let myself fall into it, taking another drink of water.
Ash joins me, crouching in front of me, and I’m surprised to see her anger is gone. She sighs, takes my free hand in hers and squeezes it, fear for me all over her beautiful face.
“Zo,” she whispers. “Tell me what you saw.”
I do, all of it, and follow up with the way it felt to fall into the fire. She looks away, sniffs softly, one hand rising to swipe over her cheek. Is my aunt crying? The strongest woman I’ve ever met, tough as nails, really shedding tears? For me, or for our people?
When Ash turns back, her face is bleak and pale. “I was worried this might happen,” she says. “You’re too damned smart for your own good.” Her smile is weak, but present. She stands, pulling me up beside her. “We don’t have much time. Rena will no doubt run off to her mother or to Sibyl and blab about your event.” I want to ask Ash what happened, but the shape of my body in soot on the floor tells me more than enough.
“Would I have burned up?” I stare at the outline of my body.
Ash doesn’t answer that question. “They might not like it,” she says, “but you need to know everything now. Our timetable has been moved up and there’s nothing they can do about it.”
I meet her eyes, frowning as I watch her open her lighter and flick the wheel. “Wait, what? Who?”
Ash’s hand tightens on mine. “You’ll see soon enough,” she says. And pulls me into the fire after her.
***