Her hand slid under the pillow so quickly that she pricked her finger on her knife. She yelped and fell from the bed, never taking her eyes from the shape on the chair, pulling the blade from beneath the covers and cursing when they entangled her hand, panicking and twisting the blankets more, expecting at any second—

But they were only her clothes, and the illusion of movement was given by the flickering light outside. The shifting, wavering light of a fire. A very big fire.

Alishia rushed to the window, completely forgetting her nakedness and the possibility of Erv already being in the yard below. The city glowed in the night, lit from the center by a huge conflagration. It was not the location that convinced Alishia that it was the library. It was not even the disturbing events of yesterday. Ash revealed the unbearable truth. That, and the thousands of burning pages fluttering in the air like incandescent birds.

“No!” she said, instantly thinking of the man in red with the broken book beneath his arm. “Oh no!”

Outside, fire turned the nighttime streets to dusk. People bustled and hurried and there was a surreal, almost carnival atmosphere as Alishia pushed her way through the dawdlers and curious. Food vendors were hurrying toward the fire, pushing their carts before them, obviously anticipating a profitable day. Families were trailing along the streets, moving aside whenever a horse-drawn cart came by, babbling excitedly the nearer they came to the conflagration. Alishia tried not to cry, but the smoke stung her eyes, so at least she had an excuse. Her rough cloth dress itched and scratched where she sweated, perspiration dripping with her tears to the old stone streets of a city that had been neither kind nor cruel to her, merely indifferent.

It seemed that this night, that state of affairs had changed.