4 – 8

The triumph of coming up with a solution, after so long of having nothing, makes me smile. I feel it in the flush spreading across my skin, mirrored in the pink band across Clarke's cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her smile is small, teeth hidden, but her blue eyes shine. It's not just triumph, but relief. Using the lakewater to drown out the flood isn't a complicated idea, but it's better than doing nothing or carrying on with the well. It seems Agnes disagrees. With a frown, she says, “Waits a moment, girls.” Then, to Clarke, “Weren't five minutes backs, ye said it be too dangerous. That if ye tried somethings, ye could makes it worse. How's is this different?”

She blinks, seemingly caught wrong-footed by the question. Her nose wrinkles thoughtfully. My jaw flexes as I stop myself from leaping to her defense. I don't know how it's different. It must be, or she wouldn't have been excited about it. She answers, “Because – because of how I'd do it. When I said that, I had thought we were talking about assuming direct control over the fire. This way, with the lakewater, isn't that.”

Agnes shrugs. “Suppose I'm to takes it there's a difference?”

Clarke nods emphatically. Her eyes are so very, very blue in this light. “Quite the large one, in fact. Fire is – difficult. It's affected by many things and doesn't always react the way one might think. This way is safer. This way, if I make a mistake, I can just try again. The water will just fall. It won't detonate and kill everyone.”

Her words send a cold, finger-tip shiver down my spine. It's followed by a vision of what that would look like: the silent, sepulchral stillness in the air, the cobbled-stone roads buried beneath a thick blanket of cool, crunching ash, and the graveyard sprawl of what were once stores and homes. Then, above and among all of that would be the complete absence of life. Where once was a vibrant, thriving town would be nothing and no one, and it would be because of us.

Shaken, I look to Clarke and see a feeling that is akin to mine in her. I swallow and reach for some light words. “Let's say that's...” I find none, and finish with, “Please don't do that.”

“I don't intend to,” she says quietly back. She means it. It doesn't remove that horrid image from my mind, but somewhat lessens it. For now, that's enough.

Agnes claps her hands together. I jump and turn a glare on her, as does Clarke. We may as well have sang to her for all the effect it has. “Good,” she says, “I likes being alive. Now, let's say ye can do this. What–”

Clarke's eyes flash as her shoulders push back. Her eyes narrow to vibrant blue slits and the silver-trimmed ice at the hollow of her throat gleams ominously in the lamplight. “I can!” she interrupts, proud and offended. A shiver of an altogether different sort trails gently across my skin, one I can't quite name and put aside to think on later.

The pride and offense of a magi roll off Agnes' weathered, ash-stained skin and leave no trace. She gives a level look to Clarke, one that lasts for an uncomfortably long moment. Then she says, “Let's says ye can. What would ye needs?”

Clarke gives the old dwarf another narrow-eyed glare before closing her eyes with a deep, shoulder-heaving sigh. When she answers, she bites the ends off each of her words as she speaks in a tone of forced calm. “Ideally, a clear view of both the lake and the worst of the fire. Also, someone to catch me when I collapse would be helpful.”

“What?!” someone demands, their voice high and strangled with alarm. It's only when I feel the scrape in my throat do I realize that it was me. I'm given a strange look by Clarke and one of some kind of understanding by Agnes.

My answer, when it comes, is hurriedly given. There's also a touch of condescension, as if I'm being spoken down to. I might be mistaken, but I doubt it. I'm the eldest of three and have both given and received that tone. “It may not look it, but there's a great weight to water. The amount required to fully extinguish the fire will be massive, and will tax me just as much. Without a way to lighten that burden, it's likely I'll collapse afterward.” She smiles at me and means it to be reassuring. “I'll be fine, so long as I don't hit my head.”

I'm not reassured. Not at all. Urgency fills my throat and keeps my voice high and strangled. “How do we lighten it, then?!”

Silence falls, of a kind that is miserable on the senses. Clarke wrinkles her nose and Agnes rolls her pursed lips as they both think on it. For myself, I can't think. All I can see in my mind is Clarke's body falling, her blue eyes empty. Agnes saves me from it by saying, “Share it.” Two pairs of eyes snap to her and she shrugs. “Burdens shared is burdens halved, eh?”

I look to Clarke. Desperately, I ask, “Can it be done?”

She nods. “Yes, we used to do it all the time back...back in school.”

There's a way. It's all I need for my mind to start working again. “How many more do we need? How do we do it?”

She looks startled. “We?” Whatever she sees on my face is answer enough. “Right.” She clears her throat. “Three is best, and how is simple enough: you and whoever else take my hands. I'll do the rest.”

“Well,” Agnes says, rising with a clap of her palms to her thighs. “I'm too olds and too tireds to be climbing 'round on rooftops. Edith'll go withs ye.”

Doubt clear in her lifted brow and voice, Clarke asks, “Will she?”

Agnes, without a shred of doubt or hesitation, answers, “Yup.”

- - -

The angry, deep-chested bellow of the fire presses against me as the three of us return to the taproom. It's so loud! Has it grown larger, or closer? Has the battle to contain it finally been lost? Are we out of time, or is it that I had just grown accustomed to the relative quiet of the washroom? It's hard to say, and looking through the windows is no help. All that can be seen is the hungering glow of the fire, the fall of burning ash like thick snow, and the outlined shapes of the firefighters as they continue their losing battle. I wonder if Harlan is still out there, stubborn as his old donkey at the well's handle.

Agnes leave Clarke and me to huddle at the foot of the stairs as she crosses the still-crowded taproom. Some of the faces have changed, but every available seat is filled by a weary, wounded soul. The injuries they carry seem more severe now; blackened burns weeping angrily, broken bones bruising the skin above, twisted and wrong, and wet, gasping coughs dragging mouthfuls of bloody spit from throats scored raw by smoke. Leaden, dreadful urgency settles in at the sight. We are running out of time.

Edith kneels at the side of a man, pressing clean bandages coated in a thick, off-white paste to a hideously long burn that stretches across his back. He sits hunched over his folded legs, shirt discarded, and winces at his shaking hands with each touch. Agnes kneels in front of him, drawing his attention by pressing her palm to the side of his head. He looks up at her, and there's such great pain in his weeping, smoke-scorched eyes that it makes my own sting. Without looking away from him she speaks to Edith, drawing her granddaughter's eyes to where Clarke and I stand.

It's not a long conversation. After it's done Edith hands over the rest of the bandages without a word and presses a kiss to her grandmother's sweaty, steel-gray hair. Then, she crosses the taproom to us. There's traces of blood, smoke, sweat, and that medicinal paste on her fingers that she doesn't bother wiping away. Once close enough, and by way of greeting, she calls, “Ye knows this is mad, eh?”

It's Clarke who answers, “What choice have we got?”

Edith's steel-gray eyes are grim, as is the flat line of her mouth. “None,” she says, and outside the Rest, burning ash falls like thick snow. She rounds her shoulders and waves us up the stairs. The second floor's empty stillness is jarring when coupled with the noise from outside. All of the rooms are empty, their doors closed, save for one: room six. My room. My satchel and cloak are on the table where I left them earlier tonight. It galls me to do it, but I leave them behind once more. We don't have time, not even for so short a detour as that. I'll get them after we've done it.

We will do it. I refuse to believe otherwise.

Edith leads us to the end of the hall and the empty room that takes up the corner space. It's just a touch larger than the one I slept in for those few, glorious hours, but the feature that catches my eye is the window, or rather; where it's placed. Half of the view it would provide of the waterfront is obscured by an exterior wall of the Rest, and from there I grasp what she intends. She crosses the room and sets her hands on the windowsill. “It's the best ways up!” she calls to us, looking over her shoulder. There's a waver of fear in her voice, “Are ye ready?”

Clarke's hand falls into mine as we cross the room and join Edith at the sill. It's answer enough. “Right,” she says, quiet as whisper with the roar so close. She swallows and sets her jaw, then digs her fingers into the window itself and heaves it up and open. We have just a moment to look out into a blazing hell before the wind strikes.

A forceful blast of searing air, choked with burning ash and smoke, strikes with enough force to rock me back onto my heels. Clarke helps to keep me upright as it tears at my clothes, dries out my narrowed eyes, and paints the room behind us in grime and gray. Edith leans into the gale, bowing her head and wrapping her fingers around the window frame. She means to ride it out. It howls, on and on, pulling the sheets free of the bed and whipping them around the room until they tangle with the iron stove in the corner.

It's not going to stop. We all seem to realize this together. I reach out and put my hand on Edith's shoulder. She looks back and up at me, steel-gray eyes narrow and trickling tears. I swallow my fear and growing doubt, then give her a nod. We're with you, and you with us. Her lips lift, just a little and just in the corners. Then she puts her foot up on the sill and climbs out I follow, and together we climb up onto the roof of the Rest and bear full witness to this burning, moon-cursed hell.