The study door was open, and I saw fiery roof thatch falling on the floor. Merlin’s potion made it burn bright and hot.

I heard a pop. Then another. Glass bottles were breaking apart in the heat.

The air thickened with smells. I recognized ingredients Merlin and Morgana had ground up and boiled down into potions. One was for healing cuts, they’d said—twenty-three ingredients. Another was for sleep—fifteen. A third they had put on my paws when I stepped in the itchy plant that grew by the Wall of Trees—five ingredients.

They were potions kept on the bottom shelves—the ones Merlin said were safe.

I peeked into the study and saw the flames lick higher and higher. The glass vials on the top shelves bubbled in the heat.

I skittered across the floor of the den, dove under the kitchen table, and pressed up against the wall—as far away from the study as I could get.

Another glass broke.

The sound of thunder reverberated throughout the house.

A blast of energy erupted behind me and smashed all the bottles of potion Merlin had stored in the cabinets lining the wall. I smelled ingredients from fire, wind, lightning, and ice potions; they blasted their violence through the study doorway. I was protected from the force by the heavy stone wall, but thick, flaming goop splattered into the den.

The woven rug that I’d lain on a thousand times ignited and blackened, curling in on itself. The bone I’d been chewing on the floor burst as the marrow boiled inside it. The big stuffed chair smoked, and Merlin’s teakettle glowed with heat.

Bad smells rushed up my nose with the smoke. There was a magic thunderstorm in the study, and blasts of lightning shot across the living room and went up the chimney. Swirling gray clouds floated out, raining frozen hail, which boiled in midair above the flames.

Ghostly eagles and foxes, and one tangle-haired demon, scurried from the study. Just illusions, I tried to tell myself, but I cowered as they danced through the fire. A wispy demon appeared under the kitchen table and pulled his cheeks apart with his fingers. “Bleegh!”

The illusions, I knew, couldn’t hurt me, but the heat and lightning were real. I panted hard, and my mouth burned from smoke. My head ached like there was a knife in my skull, and I crawled from under the table, keeping my side to the stone wall, which was growing very warm.

I came up against the heavy front door. It was shut. There was smoke everywhere. My chin fell to the stones.

Fix what you want in your Mind’s Eye, Merlin had said. I tried to imagine a freezing wind. What would that look like?

My Mind’s Eye was bleary. The roar of the flames filled my ears, and every breath burned my chest.

I was crumpled in a heap, the heat burying all thoughts. My body was relaxing. I was slipping into darkness.

I twitched. My chest expanded, and I took one last sniff through my nostrils.

I caught a scent, and a part of me I’d never even thought to name lit up like a bonfire:

My Mind’s Nose.

Through the crack underneath the door I smelled tender summer grass.

It filled me with a thought. One last thought. One powerful, magical thought:

I want to go outside.

Crash! My head slumped forward an inch. Wood slammed against stone. Fresh air filled my nostrils.

Grasping, gulping, I dragged myself through the now-open door frame. The Asteria hung in my mane. It was spinning and glowing intensely. The door of our house was wide open and breaking off the hinges.

The door was a door, after all. But I’d opened it.

I’d nearly blown it apart.

“Stupid door,” I whispered, crawling into the grass.

My eyes scanned for Merlin, but they were caked with gunk. My head was cloudy. There were sounds somewhere. In front of me or behind? Man or magic?

My head drooped into the grass. Soft. Fragrant. My breathing slowed. Everything did.

And then there was darkness. And silence.

But I was alive.