Ben looked them over. For a moment Daja thought he was angry, or perhaps just vexed. She wondered why, trying to put herself in his shoes. He must be thinking about how to put the most people to the best use. Frostpine and Daja were just two more elements to worry about.

“Do you firewalk like her?” Ben demanded.

Frostpine nodded.

“There’s a servants’ dormitory on the second floor of this extension,” Ben raised his voice over the roar of the flames, “near the main body of the house.” He pointed to the upper story of the longest extension, the one to Daja’s left. “We’re still trying to get them out, but people are afraid to get too close.”

“Can’t blame them for that,” Frostpine shouted. The wind tossed his hair and beard wildly, turning him into some dark, mysterious figure, more a wind spirit than a man.

Daja heard screams inside the roar of fire; her belly clenched. People were dying. She and Frostpine handed their dry throws and quilts to someone, then snatched up water-soaked blankets from a heap on the ground. Ben gave them wet cloth masks from a bucket. Frostpine hesitated, then shrugged. He and Daja suffered less from smoke than most, but they weren’t immune. He let Ben tie the mask over his nose and mouth; a woman performed the same service for Daja. Then Frostpine ran through the smoking door with his load of dripping blankets.

Chapter 11

Ben looked at Daja. He shouted, “The nursery. We haven’t brought any children out.” He pointed to a second-story window where the other extension met the main house. A woman in a white nightdress leaned over the ledge, a child in her arms. Their mouths were dark Os in their faces; they were screaming. A handful of firefighters maneuvered under the window with an outstretched blanket, yelling for her to jump. The woman tossed the child down instead, then disappeared from the window.

Ben grabbed a huge axe and ran down the courtyard between the extensions, Daja behind him with her load of soaked wraps. He swerved around the firefighters as they tipped the wailing child off the blanket and approached a door on the ground floor near the nursery. First Ben put his palm against it, making sure no fire waited behind the door to burn anyone who opened it. He then tried the latch: the door was locked. Swinging the axe, Ben chopped until the door fell apart, releasing a billow of smoke.

“Try to come back alive!” he shouted over the roar of wind and fire.

Daja grinned at him and ran into the building, stretching her senses out. Her power was of more use than her eyes; she could see, barely, but the smoke made her eyes stream with tears.

The fire was still deep inside the main house, greedily devouring cheap pine and costly teak columns alike. She heard metal scream as it lost the shapes it had held for years. She had some time, but not much, before the blaze reached this extension.

To her right was a stair: someone lay crumpled on it. Daja hesitated, then dumped her blankets, grabbed the victim-a boy-and dragged him to the open door, tossing him outside. Ben was still there: he gathered the boy up with a nod to Daja. She went back inside with relief. Ben had him. Now the boy had a chance to live.

She raced to the stair, grabbed her blankets, and climbed to the next floor, wondering how all this had started. Not in the kitchen, or the back part of the house would burn first. Not in the extensions. In the front of the house, perhaps? A branch of candles knocked over, a hearth fire that popped burning embers onto a silk rug? They might never know.

Perhaps it was set, whispered a thought. Daja shook her head. Who would be cruel enough to stage such a disaster?

She heard screams as she lunged into a hallway from the stair. Running toward them, she searched for doors on either side of the smoky corridor. Here was the source of the screams, a door on her left.

She felt the press of the oncoming fire; its power flooded her veins. At the end of the hall she saw wisps of smoke curl through a closed pair of double doors that must lead to the rest of the house. How long did she have before the doors blew off their hinges?

No time to think of that. Daja checked the nursery door for heat as Ben had, then thrust it open. Women in nursemaid clothes or nightdresses spun to face her, all but one. She stood at the window across the room, gripping a child by the nightshirt with each hand. She stopped, changed her hold to grab one shrieking youngster by the waist, and hoisted the captive to the open window. A quick shove and he was falling out. The woman seized the next child.

Daja counted heads. There were more than a dozen people here, five servants, the rest children. She thrust blankets at the three nearest women. “Carry one pig-aback, have the other walk right behind you!” she shouted, grabbing a small child and lifting it onto one maid’s back. The woman stared. The child-a boy, Daja thought-wrapped arms and legs around her. Taking an older child, Daja thrust her against the maid’s legs and made her grab the woman’s nightdress. Then Daja took the wet blanket she’d handed the maid and draped it over her and the children like a cloak, wrapping one of the woman’s hands around the blanket’s edges so it wouldn’t fall off. She put another edge in the woman’s free hand and tugged until the servant held a wet fold over her own nose and mouth.

Daja looked at the other women: they copied what she had done as Daja helped. Seeing the children might slide off, she yanked sheets from the cots strewn around the room and used them to tie each child to a woman’s back.

There were two more adults, but she was out of blankets. Looking around frantically, Daja saw water pitchers beside two beds. She dumped them on several covers, giving one to a servant woman and wrapping two small boys in another.