“Alister!” someone shouted. He swung around, and there was Hallie Talbot and Mick Bricker, herding hundreds into the square in front of the old temple. Talia and Pearlie were nipping at the edges of the crowd like sheepdogs, keeping them from leaking away into the side streets.

Hallie had a little girl perched on her hip—a three-year, maybe, with the same stubborn chin and gray eyes as Hallie’s. The child had a fistful of Hallie’s uniform tunic, looking like she never meant to let go.

“Is there a way through?” Hallie gasped. Her face was smudged with soot, her uniform tunic scorched. “Did the queen send you?”

“The queen?” Han’s heart slammed into the wall of his chest. “Why? Where is she?”

“Last I saw her, she was down to Southbridge Temple, fighting the fire.”

“You mean—she’s in this?”

Hallie nodded. “Captain Byrne is there, too.”

No, Han thought, his mouth bone-dry. This can’t be happening. Why would Raisa be down in Southbridge instead of safe inside the stone walls of Fellsmarch Castle?

Maybe Bayar knew just where Raisa would be. Maybe that was why he’d scheduled it now—it was perfect timing, from a Bayar point of view.

Fury rose up in Han’s throat like bile. If anything happens to her, I’ll—

“We’re trying to get back to the river,” Hallie said, breaking into Han’s thoughts. “But the fire’s coming at us from all directions.”

It was planned that way, Han thought. Hallie knew Ragmarket about as well as Han. If she couldn’t find a way, there likely wasn’t one. Han envisioned hundreds of people trapped and burning to death. “Bring them into the temple,” he said. “Take them down into the crypts. I’ll put up magical barricades to keep the worst of it away.”

“Into the temple,” Hallie roared. “Families with children first. Don’t lose anybody. Move it, we an’t got all day! Lord Alister’s going to turn the fire.”

Han was both touched and guilted by her faith in him. What if it goes wrong, he thought, trying to push away the memory of Mam and Mari.

They poured into the sanctuary—ragpickers, slide-handers, fancies in their glittery silks, rushers, launderers, the merchants from the markets—all the layers of Ragmarket crowding in together as the flames roared toward them.

While Pearlie and Hallie settled everyone inside, Mick and Talia manned the pump at the well in the courtyard, sloshing water into buckets, wetting down the outside of the temple, dumping water over themselves when their clothes began to smolder, too.

Han ushered them toward the doors. “Better get inside, yourselves. Hopefully it will burn through and be done.”

“What about you?” Talia asked.

“I have to get to the river,” Han said. Raisa would be in the thick of it. He had to try and keep his fearless queen from getting herself killed.