Aurora heard screaming, and was horrified to realize that it was not coming from anyone inside the shelter, but from the city above. The screams built and grew into an agonized chorus, and the scent of char rapidly tainted the air. Zephyr used her magic to douse a pile of burning debris, and Jinx resurrected one of her vines to make the perilous journey up to the surface where it wound around the handle to the shelter door. Jinx pulled with all the strength of her small form, and the door crashed down, immersing them in darkness.

The only sounds were the sizzle of dying flames. The pale blue glow of the skyfire lantern cast them all in ghostly shadows. Aurora shoved her fist against her mouth to keep from sobbing. She could still feel the storm—though her barriers were strong enough to keep her thoughts her own. But now it was the other souls that fed her agony. She could feel them dying—by the dozens.

A siren sounded. Too late. Far, far too late.

Desperate to do something, anything, to stop the horror and pain that bombarded her with the arrival of each newly departed soul, Aurora jerked up the leather necklace that held her tiny bottle of firestorm powder.

Locke had told her to use it in the event of a firestorm. It would not protect her completely, but it would temporarily make her impervious to flame.

She yanked out the cork with her teeth.

“Don’t!” Jinx yelled, throwing out a hand to stop her.

“Why not?”

“That powder is rare. Firestorm hearts aren’t exactly easy to capture. Don’t waste it when you’re already safe.”

Aurora cringed. “Waste it? Do you know what is happening out there?”

Jinx held her ground. “I do. And I also know that you cannot do anything out there that you could not do in here.”

She meant for Aurora to soothe the storm. While much of her newly realized power was still a mystery, she had spent their journey back to Pavan quietly soothing unsettled souls and preventing them from becoming storms. But those souls were relatively normal—lost and wandering from their inability to disconnect from their former lives. The soul that seethed above them now had been twisted and marred into something foul and unrecognizable. There was no soothing that kind of rage, not without a Stormheart to bring the storm to heel.

“I can’t,” Aurora whispered. “It’s beyond my skill.”

“What do you mean, beyond your skill? I thought you were the most powerful Stormling to grace the Pavan line in generations?” This question came from Zephyr.

Aurora grimaced and shook her head. “I’m not.”

“You’re not the most powerful?”

She was not a Stormling. At least, that’s what she had always believed. Now, she was not sure what she was.

“It’s … complicated.”