The smell of cooked meat fills my nose and lungs, and I vomit up the wine I drank with Livy. Retching in the darkness, I take hold of the ankle and pull with all my strength. Something gives, and Ruby screams. At least she’s alive. A broken hip can kill an old woman, but not as quickly as fire.

Switching ankles, I pull with both hands, dragging her far enough to get clear of the flames. She’s moaning now, the sound like that of a wounded animal. I press my nose to the floor, take another breath of smoke, then get to my knees and heave her over my shoulder. As I struggle to my feet, dizziness pitches me against the wall, but somehow I right myself and stagger back toward the bedrooms.

The smoke is dense here too, but at the center of it is a dim, cool flicker of blue. I lean toward that blueness, trying to keep Ruby on my shoulder as I go forward. Move your feet, I yell silently. Move . . . It’s as though my nerve fibers are shorting out one by one, attenuating the signals firing from my brain. Again the stench of scorched meat gags me, but I’m almost to the light. With a last heave I lift Ruby onto the windowsill and hold her there.

I don’t want to drop her, but I can barely stand, much less lower her the six feet to the ground.

Suddenly two bright yellow gloves appear and pull her from my grasp. Male voices are shouting through the window, but I can’t make out the words. The world outside the window seems part of some other universe. More yellow hands reach out of the brightness, reaching for me, but they are too far away.

I am falling.

The sun is in my eyes, and the skin of my face is burning.

A teenager wearing a black fireman’s hat is holding something over my mouth and nose, and something like cool ambrosia is laving the burning walls of my lungs. I try to suck in more of it, but the effort triggers a coughing fit, great wracking spasms like blades tearing at my ribs and trachea as smoke pours from my nose and throat.

“Penn, I’m here,” says a woman’s voice.

“Mom?”

“Livy.”

I see her face beside the fireman’s now, her hair still damp from the Cold Hole. She takes my hand and squeezes gently.

“Ruby?” I ask.

“She’s right over there. Look to your left.”

As I turn, I see two paramedics rolling a gurney across the lawn. A third is holding an IV bag at shoulder level as it drains fluid into Ruby’s arm.

“I want to see her,” I croak, rolling over and getting to my knees.

“Easy, sir,” says the fireman. “You’ve been through a little hell in the past few minutes.”