“No.” Matthew reaches me in two quick strides. “He wouldn’t.” He grips my shoulders so tightly that fresh tears fill my eyes. “He would be dead. Nothing you do or did would change that. Do you understand?”

The ferocity in his expression dries up all the words left in me. I realize, with a perverse thrill, that this is the first time he’s ever touched me. He refused a handshake when I first met him. And now, years later, he’s got his hands on me, physically holding me together.

I nod, and he lets go, turning away like he’s used up all his energy, can’t stand the sight of me a second longer.

He starts off through the heath. Max bolts away from my slack grip and past Matthew, clipping his leg with his tail. I watch the dog run, too exhausted to chase him.

“He’s fine; it’s an island,” I mutter to myself. “He can’t go far.”

Matthew glances back, so quickly it looks like a tic. I have to stop talking, filling the silence, the occasion doesn’t call for it, and I sound, well, crazy. I feel crazy. I wish I were crazy and this hadn’t happened.

Matthew Clare probably wants to check on the tourists’ bonfire, and that’s probably a good decision. It might worry the islanders to see flames on a day like this. I follow him at a distance, over the heath, down dips and up hills, off the road, who knows? I just watch his back, that dusty jacket, and walk. Watch Max running ahead and back to Matthew, ahead again, manic in his confusion. Why isn’t he circling me? I’m his human.

He doesn’t trust me. I don’t trust me.

I smell the fire. It’s sharper than before. Sour and acrid and—oh no. Visible. I look up to find the blue sky streaked with murky gray. Something lands on my shoulder.

Ash. I pinch it between my fingers, numb, and then I hear the fire growling. The scale, the rage of it. This can’t … this can’t be happening.

Matthew has started running toward the campsite. When Max doubles back toward him again, Matthew shoos him away, kicking out, shouting.

I run past them both, my throat burning, hand raised over my eyes against the smoke.

There’s no campsite there, not anymore, nothing but a wall of fire, confetti of brightly colored fabric dancing outward from the flames, burning in tiny curling triangles in midair.