At the intersection called the Whirligig she struck a ripple in the ice. Before she could fall, hands caught her free arm and supported the outstretched one, lifting her clear of the bumpy stretch. Two skaters, swathed like Daja in scarves, carried her onto smooth ice and set her down easily. They were gone, speeding toward the hospital, before she could gasp her thanks. Now Daja called her fire globe in through her palm, using it at last to warm herself and to ease her throbbing legs. Yorgiry Hospital was all the beacon she needed: the entire top floor was in flames.

I bet they stored things in the garret, she thought grimly as she wove through the skaters as fast as she dared. Nice, dry things that would burn. I bet he went straight up there.

Rather than battle onlookers, she skated wide around them, headed for the soup kitchen’s dock. She glided in between sleighs and people with hand-towed sleds as they lined up on the ice. These picked up as many people from the hospital as they could carry at the dock, and took them to safety.

Silvery light shone. Daja shaded her eyes. A mage of some kind crouched on the muddy ground under the dock. Magic radiated away from her, into the ice. A melted puddle of water on the surface, slippery as grease to skater and sleigh, froze. The mage was a weather-worker, drawing cold from the ground into the ice around the dock. Hot as the nearby fire was, the ice would remain safely frozen for the sleighs.

Watching the mage, Daja hit one of the dock’s piers shoulder-first. At least I was almost at walking speed, Daja thought, grinding her teeth against pain. Even through all her layers of clothing, it hurt. Worse, she heard the ice-mage cackle with amusement.

She didn’t linger. Instead she stripped off her skates, slung them around her neck, and climbed a ladder to the dock. A double line of people stretched between it and the kitchen, handing the sick, injured, and young to the waiting sleighs.

Jory stood beside the open kitchen door. Like every worker in this line she had a wet length of the muslin normally used to strain cheese wrapped over her mouth and nose to strain out smoke. She yelped when Daja hugged her from behind, then gasped with relief as Daja pulled off the scarves that hid her face. “I don’t suppose you’d want to get yourself to safety?” Daja asked her.

Jory coughed. “I’m safe right here,” she insisted. “Ravvot Ladradun’s still evacuating the nursery-we need every hand to get the little ones out.” She took the scarves Daja offered her and wrapped one around the shrieking, coughing, half-dressed infant that someone passed to her from inside the building. Jory gave Daja’s other scarves to the workers on either side; they draped the next two children in them. Daja removed her outer coats and handed them over.

“Ravvot Ladradun’s dead,” shouted a man, giving Jory a last infant. “They said the roof just caved in on the nursery!”

Jory’s eyes flooded and spilled over, tears cutting through the ash and soot on her face. Automatically she grabbed the next patient to come out, a man with only one leg, and wrapped him in one of Daja’s coats before passing him on down to the sleighs.

“Potcracker’s still inside?” Daja asked.

“She’s holding the fire,” Jory croaked. “Somehow it got into the cellar storerooms, and the oil jars blew out the back of the kitchen.”

“Try to stay alive,” Daja told Jory. She plunged into the kitchen thinking, somehow it got there, my eye. Ben likes to mix oil and fires.

Chapter 16

Olennika stood before a wall of flame where the back of the kitchen had been. The dark-haired mage looked embattled. Her black hair tumbled wildly from its pins. Her sober gown was ripped, charred by debris, and smeared with soot. Sweat coursed down her face. Her black eyes were serene, her hands clasped lightly in front of her. About to yell in her ear-the roar of falling beams, fire, and screaming people was deafening-Daja remembered a way to talk that wouldn’t distract Olennika from her barriers on the fire below. She placed her hand lightly on the cook-mage’s arm.

As she’d hoped, their shared bond with fire made it possible to speak. Do you need help? asked Daja.

Olennika smiled crookedly. I’m fine-I must hold this so they have another exit for the patients, she replied. You’ll waste time if you try and hold the fire inside the hospital. There’s too much. You’ll be overwhelmed.

Remembering Jossaryk House, Daja shuddered. She’d do it again if necessary, but it was like surviving a tidal wave. She didn’t want to have to try it twice.

Olennika picked up her thoughts. So you learned you can’t beat everything, she thought, her inner voice as wry as her speaking voice. So you found you’re human. How sad. Listen to me, girl-mage-as soon as they don’t need this exit anymore, I am leaving. I know when I’m against something bigger than me.

I can help, Daja replied. There are patients still inside. I’ll see if—

Wait, Olennika said when Daja would have let go. There is a thing… if you’re not afraid.

What? Daja asked.

Olennika’s thought flickered, as if she herself doubted. Then she told Daja, On the far side of the hospital, straight through that door on my left, there’s a locked wing. The mad ones are there. Most are docile. We drug them nearly all of the time until the healers see if they can be helped. No one’s tried to get them out.

Daja faltered. Like most people she was afraid of insanity. She saw mad folk everywhere, those whose families were too poor for expensive healing that would bring them happier lives, or those who simply couldn’t be helped.