Page 163 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
Steeler turned to Terrin.
“Can you put out the fire?”
Terrin’s forehead squeezed as he concentrated, but after a second, his face fell. He lifted his hands and chucked a ball of water at the nearest rooftop, but it just dissipated as soon as it hit the flames.
“That’s…” Terrin’s face had gone pale, paler than I’d ever seen it. “That’s not real fire. That’s…alteredfire. Like it’s beenShape Shifted.It won’t listen to me or…” He threw another ball of water that dissipated in a hiss of steam again. “…react to my magic.”
We all stared in horror at the flames that only crawled higher and higher into the sky. Wasthiswhat had ravaged Emelle’s village, too?Alteredfire that the Element Wielders of the town couldn’t touch?
“Sasha, Sylvie!” Steeler had snapped into commander mode. “Go help any villager you can find—get them to that bunker that was used for tsunamis on the east side.”
The twins nodded and streaked off toward the village square. Steeler turned to Barberro and Nara.
“There’s a blacksmith and armory shop side by side over there.” He pointed down a street marked with a crooked sign calledMosscrest Avenue.“I need weapons. Anything you can find.”
The two faeries—vigates—didn’t hesitate before sprinting off, their gaits so in-sync despite the height difference that I didn’t doubt Fate had woven their very souls together.
Steeler spared a half-glance at Garvis, Terrin, and Dazmine before shifting his gaze to me and reaching out to thread his fingers through mine with his sword-free hand. The touch was brief. Too brief.
“Don’t leave my side, little hurricane,” he whispered.
Then a new scream, closer and louder than before, split the billow of smoke before us, and the rest of us rushed after the source of the noise—up Mosscrest Avenue, thick with falling ash, and around a bend.
A woman was on her knees in the middle of a dirt road, holding two small children against her chest with one hand and screaming as she pointed her other hand outward.
“I can’t!” she wailed at us when our thundering footsteps surrounded her and she looked up through red-rimmed eyes. “I can’t Summon my husband back! That thing t-tookhim!”
“What thing?” Terrin asked.
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Shaking, she pointed ahead, past a little stone church between houses. “But it went that way! My husband’s a Shifter and couldn’t get it to—it’s okay, baby, it’s okay.” She held one of the children tighter against her chest asthe little girl began to sob. “H-he couldn’t Shift its claws or teeth in time.”
Claws and teeth? I exchanged a single glance with Steeler to find my own confusion and terror reflected in his eyes.
Whatever these monsters were, it seemed they were immune to Element Wielding, Object Summoning,andShape Shifting.
Garvis bent down to touch the woman’s back.
“Can you tell us what this monster looked l—”
An ear-ringing roar burst from behind the church, and the children in the woman’s arms shrieked with renewed sobs.
Steeler looked at Terrin and Dazmine, gripping his sword tighter. “Get them to the bunker. We’ll go after the husband.”
To my surprise, even Dazmine didn’t hesitate to obey. She rushed forward to scoop one of the children up while Terrin grabbed the other one.
I snatched at her elbow just as they were about to flee.
“Be careful, Dazmine.”
Out of all of us, she was the only full-blooded human. Her lifespan was shorter, and she only had one magic.
She tossed me a dry smile over the strap of my bag still slung over her shoulder.
“I will. And you can call me Daz.”
Then she, Terrin, and the children fled down a side alleyway with the mother on their heels, the woman’s tearstained face flinging back one more time as if desperate for a last sign of her husband among the smoke.
We’ll save him for you, I wanted to tell her.
