Black, unnatural flames sprang at her, as though alive with teeth made of fire. She tried to retreat, but in doing so tripped on a coil of rope, which somehow managed to slither around her ankles like a constricting snake. She gagged as a plume of acrid smoke, almost as hot as the fire just behind it, entered her throat.

As she fought the rope and the coughs that wracked her lungs, she knew this was it. This was the end, her six years of life all she would be allowed by a world that had suddenly turned against her.

But then she was there, as calm as if their house wasn’t on fire, as calm as if she was merely there to help Bryony tie her shoelaces. “Stay low, the air is fresher near the floor. Let me get you out of here.” Her mother’s voice, as comforting as a warm blanket, as soothing as a spring rain. Bryony obeyed, sucking in a lungful of smoke-free air, gasping. And then she was free, gripping her mother’s hand as they ran together in a low crouch, toward an open door that was, remarkably, not smothered in flames.

We’re going to make it, Bryony thought gleefully, hope rising in her chest at the knowledge that all this was about to be relegated to nothing but a nightmarish memory. They would be safe again. Both of them.

CRAAAACK!

Her mother’s hand slipped from hers at the awful sound, shoving her hard in the back.

Not a moment too soon, either, as just as she pitched forward, a wooden ceiling beam, charred and smoking, collapsed behind her.

She turned, her backside scraping the floor, eyes wide with horror. For there, standing between her and her mother, was a wall of impossibly dark flames. For the first time that she could remember, the gold leaves that speckled her mother’s face and that matched her father’s were fully visible, not covered up with the white powder she dabbed on every morning. “I love you, Bryony,” her mother said, not even the slightest edge of fear in her voice, despite being ringed with flames. Almost as if she’d accepted this very fate a long time ago. “Now go!”

She didn’t want to leave her—how could she leave her own mother while she was still in danger?—but fear took over, along with survival instinct, and she scrambled to her feet.

And then she ran, a scream rising in her burning throat.

Branches lashed at Bryony’s face, but she shoved them aside, ignoring the lances of pain as they whipped back at her. She didn’t know how she’d freed herself from the vines but didn’t care. All she cared about was escaping this cold, tangled prison as swiftly as possible.