Page 36 of Flame and Sparrow

I spent hours trying to decipher and diagram it all anyway, poring over the books and talking the ears off everyone who passed through our latest hideout, attempting to learn, to ready myself, to pinpoint weak spots I might be able to narrow in on once I was walking side-by-side with the Fire God.

A chill gripped me every time I pictured myself taking that walk, but I shook its ruthless hold off over and over again, forcing my attention back to plans and preparation.

There was plenty of fascinating literature to choose from. Saphiel’s cousin—Zara, was her name—was as helpful as Saphiel had promised she’d be, both in hiding us and enlightening us; she was one of the elves most involved in the study of our kind’s now-cursed and earthbound magic—a role she’d partly inherited, as her ancestors had once been among the most powerful magic wielders before the Fall.

I knew studies of this magic were growing deeper, the field of this knowledge ever-expanding, but I’d seen little in the way of practical examples of it, and met even fewer actual scholars of the movement.

If anyone was going to discover how to bring down the gods with our so-called corrupted magic, however, I soon became convinced it would be Zara.

It felt like fate that I should find myself here on the eve of my mission. She and I spent hours by the fireplace in her cramped living room—often joined by Cillian—dissecting the brief conversation I’d had with the God of Fire, studying the mark he’d left and all the ways it came and went and reacted to the things I did or said. The most basic explanation seemed to be that strong emotions awakened its magic and made it appear, but Zara and I both suspected it went deeper than that.

Our conversations gave me hope. A proper direction to head in. A belief that if I could provide Zara and other scholars like her with more firsthand information about the Fire God and his brethren, then surely we could create some sort of weapon to bring those gods down.

Most days, I was so consumed with my thoughts and planning that I barely slept. Or ate. Or did anything else without a book in my hands or a notepad beside me, my hand cramping from all the thoughts I scribbled down in an attempt to untangle them. I wanted to believe my mind was absorbing it all, even if I was more closely resembling a walking, brainless corpse with every passing hour.

I didn’t know how long I had before the Fire God would come for me, so I convinced myself I didn’t need sleep or food as badly as I needed to prepare.

But the lack of these things, combined with the lingering frailty from my time in prison, eventually led to collapse—I lasted five days before it happened; one moment I was pulling a book from a shelf in Zara’s office, the next, I was sprawled on the floor, blinking dancing lights from my vision, fingers digging into the weathered floor boards to try and keep my grip on reality.

My fingers eventually slipped away from the floor and reached instead for the bird hanging against my throat, and I would have sworn I heard my sister’s voice floating down to me.

Don’t let the gods win.

We can’t let them win.

Unable to muster the energy to sit up, I laid on the office floor until Cillian encountered me, rushing to my side with an alarmed gasp.

“This has to stop,” he muttered, scooping me up, carrying me to the nearest bed, and plopping me down upon it.

And though I tried to fight it, I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

* * *

The following morning,a burning sensation in my arm jolted me awake.

I shot upright, slapping desperately at my blankets, certain they were on fire. CertainIwas on fire until I rolled from the bed, hitting the floor hard enough to jar myself fully awake.

Nothing was burning.

In fact, my skin felt cold to the touch—though the flame mark was once again shining on it, its color deep red with the faintest shimmer to it. Like wet blood. It took several attempts to slow my breathing as I stared at it.

After regaining my composure, I changed into clean clothing and padded down the creaking steps to the kitchen. The sun had not yet risen, but Cillian, Andrel, and Zara were all awake, seemingly waiting for me when I walked in.

“You were shouting a few minutes ago,” Andrel explained, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Nightmares, maybe? We were just debating about whether or not to wake you.”

I didn’t recall any nightmares. Only the fire that hadn’t truly been there. I didn’t mention this, however, because Cillian was already looking at the flame-shaped mark on my skin as though it was going to make him sick—a look that had nearly become permanent over the course of the past week as that mark became an ever more constant blight on my skin.

He’d stopped trying to convince me to change my mind at this point, but part of me was still afraid he might lock me away in some misguided attempt to protect me from myself.

Zara quietly fixed me a cup of tea that smelled strongly of lavender. Her heavily-wrinkled face scrunched in concern as she plopped the steaming cup in front of me and sat back down. I admired those lines as I sipped the warm liquid; the furrows around her eyes ran the deepest—likely from years of squinting at books and casting narrowed, disapproving glances at all her doubters.

The burning in my arm returned as I settled deeper into my chair, the sensation faint yet unmistakable.

Was it a signal of some sort?

Was thishow the God of Fire intended to sendfor me?

I tapped my fingers irritably against the cup in my hands and sipped more adamantly at my drink, focusing on its warmth instead of the heat radiating from my new mark.

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