The advancing fire eventually slowed and stopped, and as the sun broke the horizon and cast its rays across a whole new world, the lake of fire began to settle. Its level became constant, a little higher than the reservoir had been before and scorching its shores, burning trees and undergrowth, sending plumes of smoke spiralling skyward in chaotic thermals. A column of smoke hung above the valley, spreading into a huge mushroom cloud that caught the most beautiful sunrise Vince had ever seen.

“It’s staying like that?” Vince asked.

“Who knows,” Sammi said. She smiled. “She’s certainly made her mark.”

Vince held Angela’s hand and she squeezed back.

“I feel like shit,” she said.

“You look it.”

“Nice,” Dastion said.

“We still don’t know what’s happened to them all,” Vince said. “They could still be a danger.”

“I don’t think so,” Sammi said. “They’re in chaos.”

“How can you know?” Angela asked.

“Because I can tell you who escaped and who didn’t,” Sammi said. “If I closed my eyes and really concentrated, I think I could see where they all are now, hiding or running.”

“Or caught by the military?” Vince asked.

“Oh, very few of the humans survived the fire,” Sammi said. Vince was shocked by her dismissive use of the word “human”. She’d used it without even realising what she’d said.

“So which ones?” Vince asked. He was thinking of Mallian, even though he’d witnessed the Nephilim and the fairy flicker out of existence. There one moment, gone the next, slipping through the briefest of portals created by the blink of a fairy’s eye.

“Thorn the pixie is still running,” Sammi said. She was silent and contemplative for a while, and Vince thought perhaps she was remembering the cruel deeds she had seen the pixie perform. “Shashahanna crawled over the ruined dam and swam down the river beyond. She’s gone too far for me to see. Fellian died at the river. Two of Mallian’s Kin held her down and drowned her. She and her partner adopted three children and lived in Ottawa. They only have one mother now, but Fellian always remembered them, even though she found her real life in the Fold.”

“Having a new life doesn’t mean you shed your old one,” Dastion said.

“A harpy is still circling the valley, high up, bloodied but delighted. Its name is Foxon, and it once ate a princess in front of her family, and killed torturers in an ancient war. Others died in the flames. I sense them, but I can’t fix their names or their histories. They’re just shades now. Ghosts. Like most Kin who have ever lived.”

“Bone and his father?” Vince asked.

“Their story is finished,” she said, and as she looked out across the valley her eyes were filled with fire.

* * *