Wystwood

50. Unravel a single life

Ada's mouth tasted like ash. Ash and smoke and screaming. She could hear the lyceum's roof falling inward, and could see the fires burning lower as they were smothered by dust and rock. The pillars crumbled down, one by one, giving under the weight of the ceiling until eight piles of blackened brick lay atop the lost bodies of eight fae.

Florentin was gone. His last words had been his daughter's name, who was now cradled in Armestrong's arms, several metres from Ada and Raeph's shaking bodies. Neither were cold, though Ada also didn't feel especially warm. The flames had licked her skin close enough to burn, but there was a sharper ache within her, which hissed and spat and left her quaking from the strength of it.

It was strange to think that she had feared jumping into a stream earlier that same day, and as she looked down at her scorched shirt sleeves, the irony wasn't lost on her. But it wasn't welcome either. What she wouldn't have given for water in those moments. Water to wash the rubble away, douse the flames, soothe her throat. 

Ada had scrambled from Raeph's arms as soon as they had cleared the lyceum, crawling on hands and knees into comparatively clean air. She had wanted to go to Min, to clutch at her small hands and beg for forgiveness. But then she had seen her, swaddled like a baby in Armestrong's tattered apron as the woman rocked her back and forth.

Soot was streaked across her face, as though Min had clawed at every exit in the caravan looking for an escape. Her wild curls were weighed down with ash, and grey coils of it clung to her jaw and neck, where once they had bounced around her ears. Her eyes were closed, and coughs came in bursts, though they were faint and rattled around her ribs. Ada doubted Min had any idea where she was, or what they had just done. The life that they had condemned her to. She felt sick, but her throat was too tight to bear the retching.

"A Hound probably threw a torch into the caravan with her before blocking the door," Raeph said. He sat behind Ada, legs crossed and panting. "The smoke would have suffocated her before the fire got too violent."

Ada didn't want to hear about the Hounds' cruelty, but couldn't find the strength to drag herself away. She bowed her body down instead, feeling soot smear across her forehead as she pressed it to the cobblestones. Everything ached, her feet too sore to move, but her mind was in a frenzy. She wanted to remember Florentin, and to wish his spirit to safety. But she could only picture her own family, far away and living peacefully, without the threat of fire and hatred.

If she unpicked all the threads woven into her universe, her family would be there; father by mother by siblings. Their stitching remained intact, strong and tight as Ada had always known it to be. But in an instant, the thread that had held Min to Florentin had been cut and cast away, ripping father from daughter and unravelling Min's world that much more. Ada had been severed from her life, but never like that.

Raeph's chest was heaving when Ada finally straightened up. With each breath, his tunic fluttered out to skim her cloak. Where she had felt distant, sight glazed and wavering, Raeph's eyes were bright. He had come alive with adrenaline, fingers flexing and searching for the next enemy, no longer focused on the wreckage behind him. Ada watched the smoke swirl over them and felt an anger storm across her sorrow.

"Saved him..." Ada tried to gasp out, and Raeph dipped his head to make out her words. Ada's hands formed fists against his chest, and suddenly she was beating against him with what force she could muster. "You could have saved him, saved Florentin."

Raeph's eyes shadowed, and his fingers forged manacles around her wrists. 

"What?" he hissed. "Save him and leave you to burn in there, you mean? Is that what you truly would have preferred?"