“Daja,” Nia croaked from the doorway. She offered a bottle of Jory ‘s lung-clearing mixture in a hand that shook as if she had palsy.

Daja took the bottle with a nod of thanks and tucked it into a tunic pocket. Then she grabbed her skates and went outside.

She couldn’t reach the fire in time to halt it. Silently she prayed that other mages who could help were already on their way. The hospital and kitchen people had a better chance than the victims of Jossaryk House: the fire protections she had seen gleaming on the kitchen walls and ceiling were strong. They might keep the fire back. That was in the hands of the gods and whatever mages got there soon.

Her concern was Ben. He was playing hero, with no one to know that he was the creator of their misery. She didn’t understand why he’d done this-did he want one last disaster before he moved on?-but she meant to ask when she found him.

Feeling like an overstuffed doll in her layers, she went outside. People stood in the rear courtyard, warming themselves at a fire as others came and went, patrolling the neighborhood to ensure that no other houses burned. The crowd parted silently before Daja as she strode down to the boat basin and sat to buckle on her skates.

She barely noticed them, her mind fixed on the route she must take. If she followed Prospect Canal under Craik Bridge and around the curve of Bazniuz, that would bring her onto Jung Canal. From there it was a straight skate through the frozen intersection of the Whirligig to the hospital. She didn’t know if she had the stamina and strength on skates to make it, but she had to try. Ben owed Kugisko a debt of appalling size. All her life she had believed that everyone paid what was owed, though some required help to balance the books. She had to help Ben pay up.

She stood and glided across the basin with a single push. She tripped at its edge, falling onto her back. From there she could see that the sky overhead was darkening. She had forgotten the early nightfall in this misbegotten country. With a growl she lurched to her feet, then ripped the mitten and glove from her right hand. She would have to use some magic after all. Reaching toward the watchers’ fire, she twitched her fingers. A globe of flame rose from it and came to sit in her palm. Holding it up as a lamp, she skated into Prospect Canal.

Word of the hospital fire was not out. People skated here at a leisurely pace, servants on the way home for the most part. Daja glided into the stream of skaters. Most saw her flame globe and got out of the way. Daja noticed them no more than she had the people in the courtyard. Instead she stroked forward, breathing deeply to calm her rattled nerves. A fall on the ice had not exactly given her confidence for this.

She pushed harder, moving into the center of the canal where people raced. On the raised streets along the canal’s sides, people were lighting outdoor lamps. Inside the open shutters of wealthy homes, candle-and lamplight glowed. Here on the ice more and more people carried lanterns. This was the proper use of fire, with proper respect and proper fear. Ben had perverted it.

Her pulse speeded up, her breath came faster. No. She couldn’t think about this. If she was to help anyone in Blackfly Bog, she had to skate and only that. She would deal with the rest there. In the meantime, Everall Bridge loomed ahead of her. Lamplighters crossed it, their own globes of light shining in an arch over the canal. Daja raised her fire enough to reveal the ice ahead of her feet, and deepened the stroke of her legs and skates. On she sped, the night air biting the exposed skin around her eyes, the Syth’s mild wind cold and raw with moisture. At least her lamp kept her ungloved hand warm.

Other skaters were blurs as she passed. The ice hissed as skates cut into it; laughter and talk met her swaddled ears as muffled noise. Daja leaned forward slightly and tucked her free arm behind her back as the racers did, shaping her body to slice the air like a well-honed knife. This was wonderful. It was like flying. She could have done it forever-except that just ahead Prospect Canal ended between two bridges and the flat eastern side of Airgi Island. She was good enough on the straightaway, but if she attempted the turn under Craik Bridge as experienced skaters did, she might not live to see Blackfly Bog. Reluctantly she slowed. She didn’t notice when two fast skaters tumbled and went spinning across the canal on their backs, startled by the sight of a big, thickly robed southerner with a globe of fire in her hand.

She passed under Craik Bridge, weaving among skaters who came from three directions. As she eased into Jung Canal the stream of humanity thickened. Moving onto the open ice, Daja looked up and saw why. Ahead, where the Upatka River split to become Kugisko’s canals, the sky was orange. The roof and garret of Yorgiry Hospital were in flames.

Daja thrust hard against the ice, yelling for those ahead to clear the way. Many were sightseers, but others too were skating hard to bring help. On the street that rimmed Bazniuz Island and on Rider Street, the edge of the Pearl Coast, large and small sleighs alike were in motion, racing toward the hospital, their normally musical bells setting up an urgent clatter.

Daja lowered her head and stroked harder. Her thighs, knees, and ankles set up a first, warning throb. Later, she told them. Punish me later.

Even with more people bound for the fire, Jung Canal was so wide that there was plenty of room at the center. Those few skaters coming toward Daja eased away from the girl with the fire in her hand. She locked her free arm behind her and pushed off in long, steady strokes, cold air freezing the hairs in her nose. An icy thread of it wound through a crack in her scarf to sear her vomit-and-smoke-scoured throat. She clenched her lips rather than slow to adjust her scarf and labored to breathe through her nose. When her hat blew away, she let it go.