Page 65 of Watch Me Burn

And I can. I don’t know if it’s because of the fire opal or if it’sme, but I’ve been around fire before. I’ve never felt the connection that I do now, and I’m so fucking grateful for it as I take control of it.

As I do, I imagine the fire contracting.

A wind whips up. An unnatural one, full of warmth, smelling like the conditioner in my hair—raspberry and vanilla—and circling around the edge of the hungry flames. Only instead of pushing them out, it pulls them in, suffocating them.

No. That’s not good enough.

I imagine the fire simply going out.

It’s too powerful to wink away like my fireballs do. The fire opal makes me more confident in my abilities, but I’ve only been tapped into my magic for a month. In time, I could probably blink and the fire will be gone, but right now? I need a little help.

And I get it.

Rain. It’s raining in Dyea, Alaska, with temp below freezing. The only precipitation I’ve seen in the last month has been snow, but it’s raining.

BecauseImade it rain.

Between the wind, the rain, and me pulling the fire away from the trees, it’s only a matter of a minute or more until all that’s left is hazy, black smoke where the fire was.

The rain stops. The wind dies.

The fire is gone.

Peeking out of the smoke, there’s a gap of hard dirt in front of me, a circle where the fire melted away the season’s worth of snow. A couple of trees look torched where they rise out of thehaze, but not all of them, and that’s such a relief, I nearly sink to the ground.

“I did it.” I marvel at my hands. Ever since I first shot fire out of my fingers, I’ve been worried it would happen at the worst moment. Nothing like a fireball to the brain because you innocently scratched your nose and lost control of your magic. I always expected anyone who knew the truth of my heritage to wince when I started to gesture, and it was always a soothing balm to my worries when Conall and Elise didn’t. But I’m more than just fire. I’m more than just destruction.

I made that man-made fire my bitch.

I laugh in amazement. “Ididit.”

“Yes, you did.” Man-made… it’s actually awoman’s voice calling out to me from the echoes of the smoke in front of me. My head snaps in that direction. I can’t quite make out a face, but there’s no denying the venom dripping from her tone as she spits out, “Finally.”

I summona quick gust of wind, just enough to banish the last of the smoke, then frown when I see the woman standing on the edge of the dirt circle.

She looks familiar, and it takes me second to place her. That’s right. She’s the witch who drove the Dyea Express after me and Elise arrived at the Skagway Airport.

“Lori.”

“Linda,” she corrects with a glare.

Whatever. “What are you doing here?”

She gives me a look that tells me she thinks I’m an idiot. “Setting fires. Waiting for you,witch.”

I guess it makes sense that she knows. Celeste said that our cover was set, kept secret between her, Thorn, Else and me, but maybe witches can recognize each other. I mean, Ican’t, but that’s not my power.

I wonder what hers is, and why the fuck she decides to set the woods on fire.

But first?—

“Why do you have to say it so nasty like that?Witch. You’re a witch, too.”

Linda gets a stink face. “I’m not a witch. Please. I killed the witch who drove the bus out of the airport, then took her place. Unless the covens are sending more of you disgusting supernaturals to hide out, no one checks. It could be years before my cover’s blown. But I don’t need years to hunt you. I only needed a month to wait for you to stay in the caves long enough for it to be well after dark by the time the fire caught.

“Now, you’re probably wondering why I needed to wait until dark. Simple. Because my partner and I always worked best under the cover of night, and I knew the fire would attract you more if it happened at night. Of course, I needed you on this side of the sanctuary. Witch hunters aren’t supes, thank God, and I haven’t been able to find my way into your stupid, secret town. But the caves… I took the map from the other witch I killed. Sabotaged it a little so you didn’t find whatever one the head witch marked for you—that was just because it was fun to watch you waste time—and now here we are.”

To be fair, I was wondering how such a friendly-faced bus driver was really a witch hunter in disguise—because she’s obviously a witch hunter in disguise, and her latest comment confirms it—but I’ll listen to her explain that part, too.

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