Fire and rescue personnel had responded to the blaze on Severne Row, but no training could have prepared them for a conflagration of hellish proportions. When Kat’s eyes fluttered open, ladder trucks were fully deployed, and fountains of water fell on nearby buildings to keep them from going up in flames. The great light of l’Opéra Severne created thousands of leaping shadows everywhere she looked.
Later there would be speculation about the miraculous localization of the fire. Grizzled firefighters with enough experience under their belts to recognize the impossible would cross themselves years from now when the fire was mentioned. The habitual muttering of prayers whenever Severne Row had to be crossed would become a tradition for all department captains.
Tonight, as water fell like a soaking, soothing rain, Severne held her. His embrace was like an answer to her prayers that he would live.
L’Opéra Severne continued to burn.
It had been given up as lost. The roof had caved in, and flames blazed into the night sky.
Kat looked up at Severne. His black hair dripped. His white shirt was plastered to his muscular frame. He was altogether glorious. She suddenly remembered the others and looked around to see hundreds of performers, musicians and technicians milling around.
The conductor was tended by paramedics. He wore a blanket as if it was an evening cloak. Tess carried steaming cups to the artists she usually helped in other ways. Supportive as ever. When she looked Kat’s way, her eyes glowed, but it was only the reflection of the fire. She was human even if her abilities as an experienced prompter were inhumanly brilliant.
Finally, as Kat had begun to lose hope, she saw Eric. The young daemon boy was cradled in Sybil’s arms in the shadow of an ambulance. Kat extricated herself from Severne’s hold. He had to loosen it to let her go. She rose and steadied her legs before she approached the daemon woman who had almost killed her. Severne rose to follow her, but he didn’t interfere.
“You would help him now?” Kat asked.
“I’ve always tried to help him, even though I let him wander the halls more than I should have. I didn’t know he planned to burn l’Opéra Severne. I would have tried to stop him. They should never have asked such a sacrifice from a child,” Sybil said.
Eric had turned his sooty face toward Katherine. He’d been crying. The water from the firefighter’s hoses didn’t account for his reddened eyes.
“They?” Kat asked. She couldn’t believe the daemon boy had started the fire that burned what was left of his mother.
She reached out and Eric took her hand, but he didn’t release his hold on Sybil with the other.
“Lucifer’s Army. They used Eric to burn the opera house so they could be freed,” Sybil explained.
“Now they’re nothing but smoke and ash,” Severne said. “Why would they choose death over imprisonment?” His fists were clenched. His jaw was tight. He was helpless to save the daemons he’d captured.
“No,” Eric said. He shook his head. To Katherine, he continued, “They aren’t dead. Some of them will die in the fighting, though. They warned me I might not see my mother again.”
“He freed Lucifer’s Army to attack the Council. They were taken and imprisoned one at a time, but they were released all at once. They planned a surprise attack to take the Council unawares. It will be a horrible battle,” Sybil explained. “He weeps because of that, not because of the fire.”
Katherine let go of Eric and backed into Severne’s arms. Here, a huge historic building burned. There, in the hell dimension, a daemon war would rage.
“You’ll be safe with us,” Kat said. She meant Eric would be safe, but she included Sybil, as well. She didn’t trust the daemon woman, but she didn’t want her to have to go to war.
A loud roar shook the air around them, and the ground trembled. A woman screamed and the whole crowd cried out together, their exclamations blending into a great sound of dismay, punctuated by embers of cherry ash falling from the sky.
L’Opéra Severne was gone. John Severne watched its final collapse, flames and shadows dancing on his stark, handsome face.
His eyes weren’t red, but his face was wet. They were all soaked from the fire hoses’ rain. Still, water and tears ran together so no one could tell where one became another. Kat turned and buried her face in Severne’s chest. He pulled her closer. Sybil hugged Eric, protecting him from the falling remnants of the building no one would ever know he’d burned.
It hadn’t been arson. It had been a revolution. One even a small boy couldn’t escape.
Sybil had never intended to endanger him. Her bargain had been a bluff. Kat could tell the daemon would have helped Eric no matter what she’d done.
“Katherine, you aren’t burned. The building was engulfed in flame when I carried you out. I couldn’t avoid the fire. You should have died. You aren’t even injured,” Severne said.
He ran his hands over her damp skin, checking for burns that didn’t exist.
She remembered the heat. She remembered how he had been afraid for her to touch Reynard’s blade. But neither his knife nor the fire had burned her.
“Brimstone protects you from flame. The danger to Eric wasn’t from the fire, but from the building’s collapse,” Sybil said.
“Kat has no Brimstone in her blood,” Severne said.
“But the baby she carries does,” Sybil said. “Brimstone isn’t always a curse. It can be a gift. Tonight, Brimstone helped protect you. The baby will be human as you’re human, but the Brimstone will make her or him a little extraordinary, as well.”
It should have been too soon to feel a stir, but at Sybil’s words, Kat felt a quickening in her womb. It was a fluttering to life of warmth she and Severne had created. The early movement was proof that their baby would be special. Sybil was right.
“No. It isn’t safe. I can’t endanger a child with my cursed blood,” Severne said.
But he held her closer.
He would never let her go. She trusted him completely. He’d come back for her. He’d let Michael go, safe and sound. He’d even given Grim to the baby to guard him and her sister.
He only needed time to discover the love he already held in his heart.
“Who knows whether the Council will be able to hold a contract over your head after tonight? They have their hands full facing Lucifer’s Army,” Kat said.
She put one hand over the place where she’d felt the baby move. She promised him or her that it wouldn’t matter. She would protect the baby with all she had even if the Council wasn’t defeated.
But her promise was interrupted.
Severne cried out and sagged against her. A blazing light flared from his arm. It burned through the wet material of his shirt. Steam rolled as if boiled away from the fabric. The man she loved fell to his knees. Had the contract claimed him? Had freeing Michael hurt him after all?
She couldn’t watch him burn now. Not when their baby was just beginning to grow.
Kat sank down beside Severne.
“Get back. Get back,” he warned.
His shirt was burning away. She couldn’t hold him. Even with the protection of the baby’s Brimstone, the heat was too great. They watched his shirt turn to ash and fall from his skin. But as the ash fell, the tally marks on his arm glowed. It was the marks that had flared, blazing to life and burning the shirt away.
Kat reached toward him, but he held her away.
Eric sobbed. Steam rolled. The rest of the crowd was too busy gawking at the collapsed opera house to notice Severne burning.
But before his skin ignited, the tally marks changed from flame, to fierce ember, to charcoal, to pale gray lines she could hardly see.
Severne held his arm up in disbelief.
“Kat...they’re fading,” he said.
He didn’t stop her this time when she reached to feel his rapidly cooling skin.
The daemon marks were gone.
* * *
Crews dug for hours for the chest that had been in Severne’s rooms. When it was finally found, they brought it forward as if they were frightened to touch it. Everything else was gone. Only the chest remained.
Severne and Kat opened the chest in private. Inside, the cask still smoked, but when Severne lifted its lid, the contract inside was gone.
Only ash remained.