The barrier on the ground floor swayed. Daja released the nursery barrier and slammed its power into the ground floor protections. The nursery wall splintered as unobstructed flames blasted through.

In the hall, behind her last upstairs barrier, smoke poured around the edges of the double doors that opened into the main house. Their hinges and latches glowed a dull cherry red. Daja retreated from them, one hand on the wall. It was hot. That would be the fire on the roof. She refused to look up. If it broke through over her head, there was nothing she could do.

She found a door-chimney pouring smoke: the stair. She backed into it, then reclaimed her last piece of magic on this story, freeing the blaze. The double doors exploded off their hinges. A column of flame spat down the hall she’d just abandoned. Daja turned, blinded by smoke, descended three steps, and tripped over something soft. She seized the rail, dragging it loose from two sets of bolts to stop her fall and save the quiet child on her back. Her ground floor barrier wavered. Gasping, Daja clung to the rail until her fingers cramped, fighting the blaze’s surge against her power. She thrust, scraping all she could from the wellspring of her magic, that had once seemed so deep. Sweating, she jammed hungry flames back, past the limits she had set for them. Only then did she open her eyes, take a hand from the rail, and shake the woman she had fallen over. It was the brave maidservant, the two infants wriggling against her in their slings. Her Yorgiry figure gleamed against her sooty throat. She coughed without opening her eyes.

Daja’s ears rang; she trembled from head to toe. Her knees wobbled until she finally sat next to the young woman.

Her choices were bad. She could move, or she could hold her barrier. If she lost the barrier, there would be no place to move to: the big fire would roar up the stairwell like a tidal wave. She clung to her barrier, coughing. Perhaps this was a dream. All would be well if she had a proper, dreamless sleep.

She might have closed her eyes then and there, but for the flames’ defiance. They thrashed against her grip, fighting her. They were being bad. This blaze had to remember she was in control here, not it. Fire could not just run where it liked, she knew that much. And so she gripped it with fading strength, with a smith’s iron will.

“Just hold that barrier, sweetheart,” a familiar voice croaked in her ear. “I’ll do the rest. Don’t falter, or there’ll be roast mage on Alakut tonight.” One powerful brown arm passed around Daja’s waist and raised her until she could stand. Frostpine leaned her against the wall. “Stay,” he commanded.

He dragged the unconscious maid to her feet. Cursing as he found the babies in their slings, Frostpine moved them until he could drape the woman and her burden over one shoulder. He slipped his free arm around Daja’s waist. She knew enough to sling her arm over his shoulders, gripping the maid’s clothes with that hand.

“Hang on,” Frostpine ordered. Daja heard and obeyed, though nearly all of her attention was now in her battle with the fire. It was very hungry. It sensed wood and flesh beyond her barrier and demanded them in a voice that thundered in her skull. She barely noticed as Frostpine half-dragged her down the rest of the stair, along a smoke-filled hall and outside. They stumbled into the cold. Instantly both mages began to hack smoke from their lungs as the stuff they were supposed to breathe fought its way into soot-filled chests.

Coughing broke Daja’s hold on the fire. Frostpine knew the moment it ripped free. “Move!” he shouted hoarsely as others ran in to grab the maid and the infants. “Move, move, move!” His grip on Daja still firm, he slammed into the others from behind, knocking them out of the direct path to the open door.

A column of fire, blasting with pent-up strength, roared through the opening and out over the snow. If Frostpine hadn’t knocked everyone to the side, they would be dead.

Ben and others ran in to help, taking everyone back to the gate. There they turned. The extensions to the house were burning. Smoke rolled from beneath shuttered windows. A moment later the shutters blew off; gouts of fire reached for the open sky.

Frostpine and Daja sat heavily on cold and slushy ground. Ben lifted the baby’s sling from Daja’s back. With its weight removed, she could lie down. The cold, wet stuff under her felt wonderful on her hot skin. All of her hot skin. She opened a smoke-teared eye and looked down. She could see brown arms, a brown side, brown legs. She giggled. Sandry had never expected that Daja might wear her best clothes into a fire, so she hadn’t protected them.

Daja glanced at Frostpine. He sat, knees drawn up, resting his head on them. Like her he was naked, his clothes burned off.

“Frostpine?” she whispered, her voice cracking.

For answer he let the arm nearest her fall, until his hand lay over one of hers. Don’t you ever scare me like that again, he told her through their magic. Especially not for crazy people who build fancy houses all of wood.

She knew what he meant, but that wasn’t what she needed to say. I want to go home, she told him. Her eyes hurt; she wanted to cry, but she was so dried out she couldn’t produce tears. To Summersea. To our family.

On the first caravan out of here in the spring, he promised.

She slept, or passed out, and woke in her bed in Bancanor House. It was dark; a pair of lamps burned at a table near the bed where Matazi and Nia sat. Matazi worked on a tapestry frame as Nia read softly to her mother.

“Cedar is for the protection of the home,” the girl said, “to ward against lightning or the entry of evil from without. It-“