He stalked to the center of the room, shrugging off the bulky ceramic pot he had strapped to his back. Alice carried one too, and she set it down next to Flicker as he removed the leather plug and poured a thin, translucent liquid into the round depression.

“Do you need help?” Alice said.

“You handle the killing, Reader. That’s what you’re good for, isn’t it? Leave the fire to me.”

He stared intently at the oily stuff. Alice wasn’t sure what it was made of, but she’d gathered—from the shouted argument between Pyros and Flicker—that it was precious to the fire-sprites. The amount the two of them carried represented weeks of labor on the part of the villagers, and Flicker had been opposed to wasting it on a Reader’s schemes.

Alice looked around for good places to set up her wards. Each of the three squares of parchment was folded over, to prevent her from Reading it before she was ready, and they needed to be set up at the points of a triangle around whatever she wanted to capture. She laid one of them on top of a fallen stone at the far end of the room, and wedged the second into a long, vertical crack running down the opposite wall. The last she took with her, back to where they’d come in, and set it on a boulder.

Flicker was emptying the second pot of fire-oil into the pool. Tiny wisps of white vapor rose from the surface of the stuff, as though it were impatient to burst into flame. When the pot was empty, Flicker got to his feet and looked over at her.

“Now what?”

“Light it, and get over here, as fast as you can.” They’d guessed it would take the bluechill at least a few minutes to sense the heat and arrive, but Alice didn’t want to risk Flicker’s being caught in the ward when she activated it.

Flicker raised a hand, and a tiny flame burst into being above it, burning merrily in midair. He held it out over the pool, then hesitated.

“If this doesn’t work,” he said, “we’re dead. You know that, right? We don’t have a chance of hiding from the bluechill up here.”

“It’ll work,” Alice said, then hesitated herself. I never did test the ward, after all. “If something goes wrong, though, just stay clear. I’ll handle it.”

“Believe me, I intend to.” Flicker tipped his hand over, letting the little fire fall. The fire-oil ignited with a whoomph and a burst of flame that raced across the surface of the pool. Tongues of fire rose up, a tall, steady blaze, licking close around Flicker. The fire-sprite’s hair whipped in the draft from the flame, spreading around him like a halo and dancing with shifting colors.