Fire and Water

When my brother and I arrived at the Well, we had eight followers. Five of them followed me when we divided the city, and three joined my brother. They were once my friends, family, most trusted advisors. They are now Vindicators, and they shall act in my name when I am no longer present.

Ophelia reached the first gas-powered lamp, recognising the slightly blue flicker at the base of the flame. She looked about the dark street, noting how every house had their curtains drawn and a candle in their window. She climbed up the lamp-post, pulling open the shutter. Inside, was a metallic point, from which the flame shone. At the base, though, was a small knob which controlled the flow of gas through the tip. She reached in, burning her hand on the hot metal, but managed to twist until the flame died. The hissing of gas stopped, and the light faded away, leaving Ophelia illuminated only by the distant lamps and her gas stick.

She leapt down the lamp-post, the water splashing about her coat. It was already sopping, though she didn’t care. The remainder of the street had only oil lamps, keeping the street safe from fiends.

She turned the corner of the next street, recognising it as one that had not been converted to gas. Good, she thought.

Her heart raced as she ran through the dark streets, and in the distance she heard a clock chime once for the quarter hour. It was a quarter past three. She and Faulkner had less than an hour to wake the entire city and extinguish the lamps before the gas below the city would be forced through the lamps, causing hundreds of simultaneous explosions across the city. Her task just became that much more difficult.

*

Faulkner arrived at the front door of number one, Undrul Street, and began knocking madly as he tried to catch his breath. “Hey!” he yelled as he slammed his fist against the door, waiting for it to open. After a minute, it was unlocked and a man in his thirtees opened it.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” he said angrily. His eyes were bleary and red, the bags underneath dark from being pulled so suddenly from his slumber.

“I know, sir, I’m sorry, but it’s not safe to stay in the city. Go in the direction of the Tyndibar Well, and go through the opening that’s been made. There will be a girl there, who will tell you where to go. You can choose not to go if you wish, but you should know that if you don’t hurry, this whole city might explode with you in it.”

“What? Are you drunk?”

“No, sir. If you could, too, please wake up the other people in your street, tell them what to do. You’ll be helping me a lot.”

The man looked at him cynically. “What proof do you have?” He crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow.

“Hear that sound? That rumbling?”

“Yes, so? It’s thunder isn’t it?”

“No, that’s water draining, and unless you leave now, the gas beneath the city is going to be forced through the lamps and explode. You have to hurry though. Get your family, tell them to leave, and inform your street.”

Without another word, he stole into the lamp-lit night, praying that the man had listened and would obey. The fate of an entire street rested on one man’s judgement. It was a massive risk, but Faulkner didn’t have the time to go to every door. In the distance, the clock chimed a quarter past three. Less than an hour to go before the city would be consumed by fire.

*

She had extinguished ten lamps before the Vindicator turned up, swooping down upon her like a navy-coloured raven, its pointed hat so beak-like it was frightening. It landed in front of her, though its feet didn’t touch the ground. It hovered just a few inches above the water, staring down at Ophelia with its cold gaze.

“What are you doing?” it asked in a voice of liquid fire. It rasped and burned through his throat, like the man had never felt the touch of water on his lips. It was deep, too, and rumbling, like the distant sound of the water draining.

“I know Castoro’s plan. I’m trying to stop it.”

The Vindicator laughed, but she ignored him, and pushed her way past, wading through the water in her sopping boots.

“You can’t win,” he said. “My Lord may be dead, but he left us with a task to do should he die before completion.”

“But you can’t win, either,” she said. “If I snuff out all the gas-lights then there will be no explosion. Those statues in all the squares will explode, but none will be close enough to do any fiery damage as intented.”

The Vindicator laughed once more, like a nail scratching against steel. “Do you think Castoro would be so dull as to inform you of his entire plan? He knew all along that there was a chance people would try to stop him, so he had back-up. He had a secondary plan that could quickly be put into action, and not even you can stop it.”

Ophelia felt as her expression betrayed her worry. “What do you mean?” she asked.

But she got no response. The Vindicator eyes crinkled, and she knew that behind the tall collar, there was a smile. A cold, sardonic, evil smile.

“LampLight once guided you,” he said. “Now it shall destroy you. I won’t stand in your way, but I don’t need to. You’re already doomed to fail.”

His whipped his cloak about himself, his wiry frame showing through the fabric, and took off into the air, flying away in the direction of the tower.

Don’t let him fool you,she attempted to remind herself. You can do this. You can save the city.

She nodded, biting her lip. “He’s probably just bluffing,” she muttered, as she ran down the next street towards her eleventh lamp-post for the evening.

As she extinguished it, she let her thoughts run free.

It does seem strange that it was one fire that saved this city, and now it shall destroy it.She clambered down the pole, letting her boots splash through the water. If it woke anyone, it would only make Faulkner’s task that much easier. It might have been better for her to inform people, too, but she had to focus on the lamps. The sooner she extinguished them, the sooner she could help with the evacuation.

We once shunned away shadows,she thought, and now we need them, more than ever.

Around her, fiends began to gather, welcoming the darkness that came with extinguishing. These had once all been human, but had lost their souls, their spirits into the hearthflies. Now they were empty, monstrous shells, doomed to live only in shadow. She had to remind herself that they were no longer human, though, that part of their lives were now long-dead. Tonight, if they did burn in the fires of Castore, it was only bestial flesh and bone and blood melting away, and none of their humanity.

But Nataniel will never have to face it,she thought, and it gave her hope.

She closed the hatch on another lamp, catching sight of her own reflection. Across her face was a marking, similar to Nataniel’s, only lighter, softer. It was growing dull and dark, but for now it still held a slight shimmer about it, as the contract Castoro had bound into her grew aware of its brokenness. Eventually, she would become a monster, too, just like Nataniel. Perhaps she would be dead before the night was through?

She pushed the thought aside, though, hurrying into the next street. She couldn’t stifle it entirely, though. It was still there at the back of her thoughts; niggling, worrying.

But Castoro said there is a way to save a person if they haven’t rejected their hearthfly yet. Maybe I can still be saved, if I find out what that is!

But what if that had been a secret that had died with Castoro, lost from ever being re-discovered.

“There has to be a way,” she said to herself, as she pulled herself up the next lamp and extinguished it.

*

“Take your time, everyone,” said Elenor, standing atop the edge of the Tyndibar Well so that she could meet the people leaving Castoro at eye level. “Please don’t hurt anyone to get through! You’ll all get through in time, just do it carefully and safely and no one will get hurt in the process.”

She took a moment to check on Castoro and Nataniel’s bodies. They still lay in the middle of the courtyard, but those coming through gave them a wide berth. Some stared, some looked away, and some just didn’t see the pair, but everyone walked around the bodies. Some of them seemed surprised to see the night sky, and others even more surprised at the sight of a second city joined onto theirs. Not only that, but it wasn’t raining, which was strange in itself.

“What is this place?” asked a woman as she came through the opening created by the hearthflies.

“It’s Pollror,” Elenor replied, “and your new home.”

*

Faulkner arrived in Arring Road, picking a door to knock upon. It seemed that the fellow he spoke to was far easier to convince than most, and had his family ready to leave at that moment. Faulkner left the man to wake up the remained of the street in order to take Ophelia’s mother to safety.

He knocked on the door, surprised to see through a crack in the curtains that a light was still on in the kitchen. And it wasn’t candle-light either. It was electric light. Ophelia’s mother had been sitting at the table.

The door opened, revealing a woman in her forties sitting in a wheelchair, looking up to Faulkner with a confused stare.

“Yes?” she asked.

“The city is in trouble and your daughter Ophelia asked me to get you especially.”

“Ophelia? She’s safe?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” he replied, “but for now you have to hurry.” In the distance, a clock chime half-past three.

Amelia nodded. “I’m chairbound, though, and the chair won’t go through the door. It’s part of my punish…well…I can’t get out.”

“That will be no problem,” Faulkner replied. He leant down, taking Ophelia’s mother in his arms and lifted her, crading her light body. She was only a thin woman, so she was everything but burdensome.

He pulled out the chair, tilting it at an angle so that he could take it out one wheel at a time, adjusting its angle to let it move freely. Once it was out, he sat it down on the ground, and sat Ophelia’s mother into it.

“Thank you,” she said, raising a hand to touch his face. She stroked it softly, warmly, and Faulkner smiled. A man then rushed past them.

“Excuse me, sir,” Faulkner called out. The man turned around, his body faltering slightly as he slipped across the slick cobbles.

“Hmm?”

“Can you take this lady with you. I have to let the other half of the city know what’s about to happen.”

“Of course,” he said, returning to Amelia to take her wheelchair’s handles. Faulkner watched the man for a moment, to ensure that he would take her all the way to the Tyndibar Well, and once he was sure, he continued onto the next street. He had half an hour left, and the second half of Castore to wake. He hoped, though, that Ophelia would run into him half way, assuring him that the half he had not reached yet had had all their lamps extinguished.

She was nowhere to be seen though.

He didn’t let the thought trouble him, though, as adrenaline pushed him into the next street to wake another group of citizens to the danger at hand.

*

Ophelia puffed as she ran, her throat dry, her chest burning, her legs begging for respite. She had to keep running, though. She was the only one that could extinguish the gas lamps. There were other LampLighters in the city, but she knew none of them. Their identities were as secret to her as hers was to them. She could hope that in the madness another LampLighter would reveal themselves and help by extinguishing the other gas lamps. But that was a distant hope; a fool’s dream. Just as no one had come to her aid when she had rescued Faulkner from the canal waters—except for one random, kind stranger—no one would come to her aid now. The city was too full of superstition fed by lies created by the Architect.

An old dog couldn’t be caught new tricks, and an old city couldn’t put aside their beliefs, even if it meant saving their homes.

How many of them actually understood the gravity of the situation? How many knew that there was a large chance that by the end of the night their homes would be destroyed, or that hundreds of lives were bound to end, or that all their fates rested on the shoulders of a twenty-year-old LampLighter, who, until a handful of days before, had just been a normal girl living a normal life.

She didn’t have to do this. At any point she could turn away from the city she had grown up in. She could be a coward, like those running away instead of fighting. She could let the city be destroyed. But she had integrity and she had her task. She had failed one street, but she refused to fail the city. She knew she was brave, because she didn’t turn and run. She faced her task. Just like a LampLighter, I have to protect the city with bravery, guided only by the light of my gas-stick.

At that moment, she arrived upon the street that she had not lit the lamps in. Luscombe Street was filled with rubble and fiends. Broken glass was shattered across the floor, glimmering softly in the light of a single gas lamp half-way down the street. Fiends stalked the street, their fur matted with blood from the people that had lived in these houses. They all looked up in her direction, at the gas stick’s flickering flame, which she held high. She stepped into the shadows, her shadow cast softly on the ground, the thinning water reflecting her towering shape, peaked by a single flame, just like the Architect’s Tower.

She reached the lamp easily, clambering up, protected by the warding light of both the lantern and the gas-stick. She extinguished the flame, and watched as the fiends came in closer, drawn by the deepening shadows. She was safe, though, so long as her gas-bag was full. She checked it reflexively. The bag was still quite firm, the gas inside flowing evenly, but slowly. She let out a relieved sigh.

She watched the fiends give her a wide berth, parting before her as subjects before a king. The growled and scratched at her, hissed and howled, but none acted.

Just like the people of this city, she thought. Their leader has done wrongs, has kept secrets. We scratch and claw at him, hating and distrusting him as a leader, yet we do nothing. We stay in the shadows, submissive and weak.

Perhaps these beasts still had some of their humanity left.

She turned the corner into another street. She stopped though. The lonely gas lamp had been extinguished.

Someone’s helping me!

*

The clock chimed a quarter to four, and Faulkner let out an aggravated sigh. He reached the last street, puffed and exhausted, but pleased that he had informed every street in Castore. He leant over for a moment of respite as he caught his breath, wondering how he had managed to get this far without passing out from exhaustion. The water about his feet looked clean and drinkable, but he resisted. If the canals were truly overflowing, there would be traces of sewage in these waters. Drinking it would only do him harm.

He knocked frantically upon the door, yelling as he had done with every door.

“What’s all this ruckus!” cried an old man as he pulled open a door.

Faulkner quickly explained what was happening, convincing him rather quickly. It seemed like the less time the people thought they had, the easier it was to convince them of the urgent matter at hand.

With that man informed, he turned away from the door. He had less than fifteen minutes to reach the Well before the city was meant to explode. He didn’t like his odds, or the odds of the people living in these streets, but he had to try.

He began to jog through the flooded streets, his movements ragged and weak, like a rag doll.

I have to do this,he thought, hoping it was enough to drive him. I have to be there when Ophelia gets back. I have to meet her, to know that she’s safe.

*

Ophelia looked to the tall gate standing between her and the Architect’s Tower. Every gas powered lamp in the city was now extinguished. If she had missed any, she didn’t know of them.

She looked up to the clock tower.

Ten minutes,she thought. I won’t be making it back to the Well in time.

She managed to eventually scale the fence, using the strength in her arms to then help her back down. She looked at the tower, to its fiery peak, taking note of the unusually large number of fiends scaling it this evening.

Perhaps it is the Well’s water that they are drawn to,she mused. Maybe they have a small hope that if they drink from it, they will become human once more.

She let the thought go, though, and took the first few steps into the garden, alone. There were five gas-powered lamps in the Architect’s courtyard, but which ones specifically, she didn’t know. She approached the first one quickly, careless of the fiends’ presences so long as she had her flame. She noticed the bluish flame, and with a smile, climbed up the lamp-pole, and extinguished it. A wind picked up around her; a soft, hushed wind, like the type one felt just before a massive storm. The next lamp, which was nearly fifteen metres away, was clearly oil-powered. She clambered down, and moved alone to the one on the opposite side, noticing quickly that it too was oil powered. She looked upwards and eastward, towards the clock tower. There were five minutes to go.

I have to keep trying,she thought, rather sadly, even if it means I die.

If only I had my unknown helper now!

*

Faulker had to stop. He could go no further without a moment’s rest. He was too tired, too weak from running the entire city in an hour, surprised by his own endurance, but saddened that even he hadn’t been able to get some people out of their houses in time. There were bound to be people still running about, trying to escape before the expected explosion, and he still had a good ten minute run to reach the Well in time. He looked to the clock. There were less than five minutes to go.

There had, of course, been people who had refused to leave, believe him a prankster or a revolutionist attempting to incite anarchy. Others hadn’t been woken quickly enough, meaning that he’d been forced to leave them so that others could live.

He hoped quietly, though, that Ophelia had done her job.

He stood up straight once more, mentally preparing himself to run once more. He stopped himself, though, as a noise interrupted his thoughts. It sounded like wet fabric, flapping about in a blustering breeze. He turned around, just in time to see a tall, sinuous Vindicator sweep into the street, in a streak of navy fabric and shattered glass, as he smashed through a window nearby.

As he did so, a wind picked up, blowing through the street, lifting some of the debris from the air, carrying it on the wind. But with that came a scent.

Faulkner sniffed the air.

Gas?

His mind only took a matter of moments to realise what was happening. He turned away from the house and ran for his life, feeling sadness take him as he realised the handful of people standing near the building were surely doomed.

His heart raced.

His legs pumped madly.

Lightning flashed high above the sky, illuminating a quiet, dark, peaceful city for a single moment.

The clock tower chimed four times.

And on the fourth chime he heard a pair of fingers click. An almighty explosion ripped through the air, lifting Faulkner off his feet. He tumbled wildly, confusedly as the hot, fiery air met his back and his face and then his feet. He swore loudly, waiting for the thump against the hard, uneven cobbles. Through the boiling, blustering wind, he could hear painful screams as people were consumed by fire, or ripped to shreds by flying bricks and glass.

He struck the ground hard, landing on his backside, facing the direction of the explosion. The ground shook, trembling as if an earthquake was making it way through the city.
Whether it was the daze of hitting the ground so hard, or the sheer heat of the explosion, Faulkner thought everything seemed to fall into slow motion for a moment. The flame billowed upwards from the now-decimated house, black and crimon, as bodies went flying everywhere. Some were thrown further in his direction, others slammed into the wall opposite, while others were too quickly immolated to even move before their bodies were obliterated by the flames. The fire consumed the houses next door, and parts of the houses next to them, the fire spreading as if it were burning dry grass and not wood and brick.

In the distance, a far mightier explosion smashed its way through the air.

It came from the Architect’s Tower.

*

One minute,Ophelia thought, noticing the last of the gas powered lamps across the path from her, closer to the tower than the others.

There were no other lamps nearby, so she kept her gas stick burning to force away the fiends that had begun to circle her. They stayed some distance away from the fire, but still appeared more curious, more willing to approach the flames than before.

You’ve done this a million times before,she thought, as she felt her heart race, her hands turn sweaty, her mind transmuting into a tumbling mess of confusion. The stakes were higher this time—that she knew—but it had to be done.

There were only another ten steps to go before she was in the lamp’s light. She would be safe.

And then the flame at the tip of her gas bag went out.

The fiends circled in around her, gathering into the newly created shadows, seeming to vye for the right to maim the human before them. They snapped and snarled at her, revealing rows of sharp teeth and silvery claws.

It was a fiend that looked very much like a bear that attacked first.

It leapt at her, throwing all of its weight onto her. She crashed to the cold, wet ground, feeling one of her wrists break beneath the creatures paws. It roared at her, its breath like rancid flesh, saliva dripping onto her face. She screamed loudly. This was the end of her.

She closed her eyes, waiting for the scratch to tear her face off and crush the bone. She prepared for the momentary taste of blood before death took her.

Instead, she got howls and hisses, as the weight of the fiend was lifted from her. She opened her eyes slowly, confused. Behind her was a light. A soft, warm flame from a lantern hanging at the end of a pole.

It was a boy. No, a young man, dressed in blue, his eyes hidden by the cobalt hood of the LampLighter’s uniform. He pulled away the hood, and she knew in a second who it was.
“You!” she gasped. It was the man from the canal, the one who had helped her lift Faulkner to safety. He was a LampLighter, and he was now risking his life to save her. He was the one helping her! He smiled warmly at her, keeping the lamp hanging over her, its light soft, but powerful enough to keep the fiends at bay.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “I saw you from my window. I had a feeling I might be needed, so I thought I’d put out a few gas lamps.”

“What are you doing out?” she asked.

“I saw you putting lamps out, and I thought I could help. Come on.” He smiled and held out a hand. “Let’s find somewhere safe to hide until it’s safe to go back through the city.”

She wasn’t the only brave one in the city now. Someone had shown her kindness, and concern for the city they lived in. It was a strange notion, to know that she wasn’t the only citizen brave enough to face the danger before them.

He took her hand, and pulled her to her feet. The half of his face illuminated by the lantern he had hanging on his cane was that of a young man her age, with deep brown eyes and hair. He pulled back his hood, the other side of his face suddenly illuminated by another light. She looked to the left of her, noticing a hearthfly flying towards them both. She looked up, noticing that hundreds more were beginning to converge around them, spiralling above in a slow, smooth motion. A hundred souls, a hundred hearts, all present to take witness to this single, beautiful act of kindness.

Around them both, fiends crumbled and melted beneath the light of the hearthflies, but Ophelia didn’t notice. For now, it was her, this young man, and the lights, keeping them safe.

“Thank you,” she whispered, taking his other hand with her unbroken hand so that they now shared the weight of the lantern in their grasps. “Tell me your name.”

“Sawyer,” he said quietly, leaning in to her, taking his arm away from her hand to rest it on the middle of her back. “And you’re Ophelia. I recognised you from the paper.”

She felt herself blushing. “Thank you, again,” she said, throwing her arms around him to embrace him.

At that moment, though, the clock chimed four.

No! Ophelia’s mind roared.

Around the city, she caught sigh of four mushroom shaped plumes rocketing into the air.
But how? she asked herself. I extinguished all the lamps.

Then, behind her there was a rumbling noise, as the lamp she had not gotten to exploded. First there came a pop as the gas-flow regulator broke from the pressure, and then a mighty explosion as fire and glass and metal sprayed outwards. She threw herself against Sawyer, pushing him onto the ground, and covered the top of her head with her hand. She looked up to the lamp, watching as a mighty jet of scarlet flame rocketed into the air, filling the space around her with a brilliant golden light. Fiends around her cried in agony, their skin blistering, their fur burning in the warm light. The fiends clambering the Architect’s tower illuminated by the flames fell from the stone walls, crunching atop one another as they fell onto the floor.

As she watched this, she noticed the flames atop the Architect’s cauldron, noting the way it seemed to flicker as if it wasn’t flowing smoothly.

Or as if the gas-flow regulator is buckling.

She looked around her, at the hearthflies and then at Sawyer.

“Run!” she roared, taking his hand, dashing from their quiet space as the rumbling grew louder, like an earthquake or storm building in power. Behind them, the hearthflies gathered, creating a wall of fire and flight, squeezing together as tightly as they could to protect the pair. They backed all the way to the wall, leaning against it as the hearthflies closed in around them. Between the cracks, she could see the tower, and the flame at its top. She let out a scream as it exploded, shooting into the air in a long beam of crimson fire, and then let out another cry as the fire, no longer blocked by the gas-flow regulator, burnt downward through the tower, causing an explosion in the pipes, blowing them outwards. Bricks shot away from the tower at a massive speed, seeming suspended for a moment by a column of blistering, hellish light. Rubble flew outwards, burnt red by the sheer heat, rocketing over the walls like comets. She could already feel the first few crashing through rooftops, combusting on impact in a spray of rock and fire. Before the pair, hearthflies left their posts, throwing themselves into the line of fire, stopping the massive bricks in the air. Both brick and hearthfly fell to the ground, unmoving.

“No,” Ophelia whispered, resting her head in Sawyer’s chest as a wall of heat blew over them. She was nearly knocked off her feet by the sheer force of the tower’s explosion, but the wall and Sawyer’s arms held her in place. Bricks and windows slammed into the five surrounding Vindicator towers, rocketing out the other end, breaking the foundations as easily as bullets through flesh. The hearthflies stayed, though, intercepting boulders before they could strike, withstanding the wall of infernal heat as it blustered against him, falling one by one to stray bricks or metal spikes.

They’re dying for us, Ophelia thought, feeling tears come to her eyes. Why would they die for us?

She remembered, though, that hearthflies was the souls of humans and their hearts. All that was good burned in the flames of the cauldron, held aloft by the dragonfly-like creatures. They were lost souls, freeing themselves into the next life the only way they knew how.

To die.

Almighty crashes sounded around them as what remained of the Architect’s Tower, and the Vindicators’ Towers crumbled to the ground, shaking the foundations of the city with the sheer force. Sections of the wall broke beneath the force, while houses close to the wall were crushed by the toppling towers.

How many people hadn’t been fast enough?she thought. How many were dying beneath the fallen towers?

The more important matter remained, however; how had sections of the city still burst into flames?

“The Architect had a backup plan,” she thought aloud. “He must have prepared the Vindicators for it.”

Hearthflies were picked off quickly, their numbers dwindling from hundreds to only a handful in a matter of seconds. Each of the pure human souls sacrificed themselves for the pair, and all the while Ophelia and Sawyer embraced in the light of the fire, protecting each other .

The five Vindicator Towers shook the earth as they toppled to the ground.

“Come on,” Sawyer said. “We have to get through the city before it all burns down.”

By now, there were only three hearthflies left, all of them small and surely too weak to carry them. The others laid about the lawn, crushed beneath bricks, their flames burnt out, or impaled by stray bits of metal. There was no blood, though. Only the squished bodies of the insect-like beings, and smoke that rose from their extinguished fires.

One of the Vindicator towers that had toppled had smashed an entire section of the wall, allowing them to clamber over the rubble quite easily. At the highest point of the pile, though, Ophelia saw Castore, burning brightly. Dozens of sections of her city now had flames rising from them, licking the heavens, sending up dense black smoke.

He must have planned this all along.

“It’s spreading quickly,” Sawyer said. “We have to run. How is your wrist? I saw the fiend came down pretty hard on it”

“I can’t feel anything,” she said, rubbing her left wrist. “I’m too…numb.”

“Well let’s go.”

He took her by the hand and pulled her along, guiding her through the streets. As they passed through a courtyard, they both gasped at the Castoro statue, shattered into hundreds of pieces. Some lay broken upon the cobble grounds, while others were imbedded in nearby walls or rooves. These pieces had caught alight, too, though, so many of these houses had small flames rising from them, or the thick, black smoke that came before a fire ignited.

“We’re going to lose the city by the morning, aren’t we,” Ophelia said.

Sawyer gave no reply. He simply kept running, and Ophelia followed behind him, pulled along by the arm. The three remaining hearthflies stayed close.

The city burned around them, the smoke and heat carried on the wind. The road was littered with burned bodies, red and blistered flesh oozing with blood and serum from those that had crashed into walls in the explosion. She prayed that none of these were Faulkner.

As they turned a corner into the next street, they both let out a loud sigh. It was completely and utterly burning, every house falling in on itself as the wood that held it up crumbled to ash.

“Where do we go?” Ophelia asked, as she glanced back and noticed that one of the houses they had passed was now burning. They had to act quickly, because it was only a matter of time before it spread into the next one.

“We can’t go back. All those other streets lead directly into some of the more major fires. If we can get through this, perhaps we’ll be okay.”

She nodded, fearful but trusting. He nodded to her. “Let’s go,” he said, guiding her forward.

She had to wince as the heat buffeted against her in waves, as the houses were consumed by the flames, but she endured. It was like a tumultuous storm of fire within the houses, as everything—memories, possessions, perhaps even people—were lost to the flames.

The pair ran and Ophelia looked ahead of her through tightly shut eyes, sobbing quietly with each wave of heat against her skin.

In the light of the inferno, though, she caught sight of the puddles from the fiends that had been too slow in the flames. Slowly, as more and more flames spread about the city, and the shadows shrunk, they would all be consumed. Even those below water wouldn’t have been safe, thanks to the draining. She was sure, in fact, that if she went through the slums now, she would be able to see the bottom of the city lake, and whatever people had hidden below it. Perhaps she would even see the mechanism used to pump the water in the natural gas chamber beneath the city.

They emerged on the other side of the flames, puffing, sweating and in pain, but safe enough.

“We’re getting close to leaving,” Sawyer said assuringly. “Only a few more minutes until we’ll be safe across the wall.”

“You know about that?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said. “A man came to my door and told me of what was about to happen. I was the one who got a lot of my street away before I went out to join you. I already had my uniform on from earlier in the night. I had seen you on the streets only a few minutes before the man had come, so I knew what you were doing. I thought I might be able to help.”

Faulkner!Ophelia thought. I hope he is safe. And my mother!

“And it certainly seemed I needed it,” she said quietly, as they turned a final corner, arriving at the square of the Tyndibar Well. All of the fiends were dead, their bodies blistered and burning on the cobbles. Where gas lamps had once stood were tall columns of bright, crimson fire, jetting into the air only to dissipate a number of metres above.

“We’ve made it,” she whispered, stepping slowly through the courtyard and into the Well. Together, they waded through the Well, and togther they emerged on the other side to applause from the hundreds of people gathered. It was all a blur; the cheering, the faces before her. She tried to find Faulkner’s or Elenor’s, but everything fell out of focus.

Fatigue finally caught up with Ophelia, and her legs buckled beneath her. She never felt the splash of water, though, as she had expected. Instead, she felt strong arms.

A kind stranger’s arms.

Sawyer’s arms.