Page 57 of Crown of Wings and Whispers

He shook his head. “It’s just a hunch, but I think your recent exposure to the Naming Powers have awakened your own.”

“Spending time with Persi, you mean?”

“And with Wickham. You never mentioned that white mist that tried to hold onto you hours ago, in the hotel. He brushed it off as inconsequential, but I admit I was shaken by it.”

I nodded vaguely, committing to nothing. The last thing I wanted to talk about was the way Wickham sometimes gravitated to me. “All right,” I said. “I’ll try warming myself. But if I burst into flames, don’t just stand there and watch me burn, okay?”

“I promise. And don’t think of fire, just warmth. Remember how toasty it got in the cabin and see what happens.”

I backed up a few steps, tried to ignore the cold jeans against my thighs, and thought about the cabin, about the heat that came off that firepit that finally reached me after I removed my coat. I imagined it filling the room, all the way to the rafters, and leaching into my body. I closed my eyes and remembered the warmth of the sun on my face while we’d stood briefly in that patch of wildflowers.

It's always sunny in Fairy…

I imagined that same sun shining on the rest of my body, warming layer after layer of skin until it finally warmed my bones…

“Shite!” I ripped off my gloves, my hat, goggles, mask, so I could get to the buttons and zippers that held my coat closed tight. “I’m on fire!” My entire body was going up in flames, just as I’d imagined.

Griffon ripped off his gloves, his goggles, and his mask and started tearing at my coat, pealing it off as I danced out of it. But I couldn’t stop there! I ripped off my sweatshirt and my t-shirt all at once. I reached for my bra but stopped myself. I couldn’t take that off. Hank was in there.

I begged the snow to cover me, begged the wind to start blowing again, but they didn’t answer to me. I reached for the top button on my jeans just as the fire began to ebb.

Griffon frantically searched my skin, maybe looking for flames to seep out of my pores. He grabbed handfuls of snow and waited for my nod before rubbing it on me. Back, shoulders, arms, stomach.

“Perfect,” I whispered. “Perfect.” Five long minutes into my snow-bath, I held up my hands. “It’s over. I think it’s over.”

“If you’re getting cold—”

“No. Not cold. Just…just right.” He collected the shirts I’d discarded, turned them right side out, and held them out to me. I put them on, both of them, and still didn’t burn up.

“And your coat?”

I shook my head. I was in control now. Like a thermometer, I set my body’s temperature and it held. The environment had little to do with it. “I don’t think I’m old enough for hot flashes.”

“I think it’s safe to say that was not a hot flash. By the way, your safe word was supposed to befudge, notshite.I think you’ve spent too much time with those Highlanders. You’re starting to sound like Archer.”

I laughed. I’d forgotten all about fudge. “Is this what it’s like, when you’re flying? You just decide not to be cold?”

He grinned. “Very much the same.”

“I wonder if my mother was capable of that. Would have made for one helluva fire fighter.” I shrugged. “Plenty of her friends said she was one, but that was at her funeral. Everyone lies at funerals.”

“Maybe they weren’t lying.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

* * *

Griffon helpedme back into my coat so we could both pretend to be human for a while. But there was nothing human about walking around the outside of the cabin and melting the snow from the walkways with just a thought.

“If there was a Naming Power for Fire and Ice,” I said, “it would probably feel like this.”

I melted the snow off the big pile of wood without damaging the blue tarp that lay over it. But melted snow quickly turned to ice and I decided I’d better stop messing around before the cabin turned into a fat, dome-shaped icicle.

Our hearty breakfast finally wore off and we went back inside to find something for lunch. We put a big log in the firepit for light as much as anything, and Griffon hung the iron pot on the hook. I filled it with snow, and we had hot water for washing by the time we’d eaten our canned peaches, cheese and crackers, and made some hot chocolate.

When we went back outside again, I didn’t grumble, but I was suspicious when Griffon suggested I wear only my t-shirt.

“I would rather not have another hot flash today. I’ll practice tomorrow.”

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