She didn’t have to think about it, the magic was simply there, just as it always was and always had been since she’d first discovered it ten years ago. Her father might call her boastful, but when she spoke of power, it was merely truth. If she called, the water answered—and in a place as humid as Saldonica, the air itself was laden with droplets for her to use.

Freeze, she thought, imagining ice. Becoming ice, from her toes to her white eyebrows. She was a winter wasteland, and this water would be too. Freeze. Fog formed around her. Thick, heavy fog that frosted the skin and hid Stix from view.

The crowd shrieked their approval.

Overhead, the flame hawk reached its zenith, flipped, and dropped fast. Its fire feathers whistled, its flame throat screeched. Stix sprinted through the fog, her already weak vision reduced to near invisibility. She should have taken the spectacles with her, but the risk of broken glass in her eyes had scared her. A mistake. She’d gotten too used to clear sight.

Heat thundered against her scalp. Light and sound seared in, and the flame hawk arrived. Claws out, gullet wide.

Stix shot sideways, a frantic flinging of her body while her magic scraped for water. Humidity turned to ice again, then those ice droplets thickened into shards.

She hit the ground next to a shredded dog from the previous fight. The stench of roasted innards filled her nostrils. A fraction of a heartbeat later, the flame hawk hit the earth too. The ground undulated; heat rolled across Stix. So dry, so close.

She sent her ice shards flying, already pushing to her feet and grasping for any other water she could find. She needed more than this. She needed a river, a pond, the bay beyond the Ring. She couldn’t snuff out eternal fires with only fog.

Stix resumed her sprint. The flame hawk had stopped its screaming, and the heat had faded. It must be on the rise for another attack.

She reached the wooden stall she’d entered by, knowing full well it would be locked now. Knowing full well that the guards would only laugh at her and wave their heated pokers in warning. She had watched enough of these fights to know the rules.

Arms rising as she pounded closer, she felt for a bucket of water that waited beside the door. The crowd blared their disapproval. They thought she was fleeing, and a tiny piece of her wanted to glare. She never backed down from a fight. Not at the Cleaved Man, not at sea, and most certainly not here.

She didn’t have to. She was a full Waterwitch. People ran from her.