Page 17 of His Greatest Treasure

He’d told me that he was a pure soul.

Very few people could brag about another person in their clan like that. With admiration and not an ounce of resentment at the Guardian’s power and status. Or without taking some reflected glory for themselves.

Alfie just thought Glimmer was great.

“Do you get to see him much?” I asked. I sort of wanted to hear Alfie talk some more about his Guardian, and not because I even wanted to know more about him but because I wanted to see the way Alfie’s eyes lit up when he did it.

Unfortunately, I’d chosen exactly the wrong thing to say. Alfie’s face fell and he mumbled, “No, I don’t get to see him much.”

“Why not?”

“He’s very busy protecting the clan. He doesn’t have time for me.”

I felt a surge of anger burn inside me and had to squash it down. I didn’t want to become flame right now. I didn’t want to frighten Alfie or get mad. But I was mad.

“Whydoesn’t he have time for you?”

“He’s very important, you know,” said Alfie, as though it were self-evident. “I didn’t mean to imply that he wasn’t nice. He’s nice to me. It’s just that he’s busy and he has to do a lot of work. Protecting the territory and stuff. We can’t leave the boundaries unprotected.”

“No, I suppose not,” I admitted. “The protections are strong. It’s very safe here.”

For some reason, I just didn’t like Alfie implying that he wasn’t important.

Maybe it was because he was literally the only person I knew, but it didn’t sit right with me that other people didn’t think he was as important as I did.

“Wow, your eyes change colour, did you know that?”

I started, and saw that Alfie was leaning forward, studying my face.

“Do they?”

“Yes. They change like flames. They’re darker than they were before.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Have you never seen yourself in a mirror?”

“I have a few times. When I went past one. I’ve never really bothered to look at myself, though. It doesn’t matter what I look like.”

“You look beautiful. I-I mean, you look nice. Well, youdolook beautiful but that’s not really important. You have lots of other good things about you as well.”

I smiled, charmed by Alfie’s ramblingmouth.

“I’ve never really thought about what I look like. Unless I’m thinking about my size. I can control how big I am when I turn to flame.”

“That’s very cool!”

My smile grew bigger. “Is it? Well, it does take more energy to burn bigger, but sometimes it’s necessary.”

“And burning smaller?”

“Takes more concentration but less fuel. I tend to do that. It makes me feel safer, being small.”

“It doesn’t matter how big you are here, Blaze. You’re safe either way.”

I gave a non-committal hum at that. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him, because I knew he meant it. It was just that he didn’t understand how small and frightened I felt all the time. He didn’t know that I needed to keep myself safe. I didn’t trust other people to do it.

Chapter 8

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