"GET OUT. YOU HAVE TO GET OUT. WE CAN'T HELP ANYONE ELSE NOW. ANYONE ELSE IN THE TOWER IS SURELY DEAD."

"There's no way anyone else is getting out of there alive. Let it go!" said Professor Lambros. Tears made her eyes bright as she shoved me further away. She had met us at the doorway of the Tower, helping anyone left inside out, just before the structure was entirely engulfed.

I tripped as I turned, landing on ground that was cushioned by the dusty mud that covered it. I looked wildly back at the Tower. Flames shot out from every angle; every window was ablaze in orange fire. It kept growing higher and higher into the night sky, as if trying to touch the heavens. Fingers of flame reached around to meet each other, they grasped each other and linked themselves as if in greeting, making ever larger chains as the Tower burned. Black smoke ran in streams like water pouring from a faucet. I blinked rapidly as the acrid air hit my eyes.

All I knew was that a paranormal had kept the pathway clear for us. A paranormal had made sure we were safe. I was sure there was only one person who would have watched over us like that.

"KELLER," I screamed. "KELLER." I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I wanted to put both hands on my stomach to stop the pain, but I knew it wouldn't go away. I had seen Keller running towards us before the flames had grown too large. His pale skin had stood out against the blackness while his dark wings blended into it.

And now, where was he? Please don't let him have gotten stuck in there, I thought desperately. Lambros had just said that anyone else still in there was as good as dead.

I looked around, searching for one face. There were students sprawled on the ground everywhere around me, many groaning or crying, a few yelling. I barely registered that there was a group of pixies who had already pulled out hairbrushes and were busy grooming themselves. Uncaring little vermin sp.a.w.n/monsters. At least lots of paranormals had escaped the burning Tower, now too hot to go near.

Then I saw Sip and Lisabelle.

My chest hurt, and I let out the breath I had been holding. They were safe. Sip's face was streaked with tears, and she was limping as Lisabelle supported her. Both of their faces were grim, but they were alive.

I raced towards them. "Keller?" I asked, not bothering to hide my panic. I couldn't imagine what I would do without him.

Lisabelle pointed, her hand shaking with some unquantifiable combination of pain, fear, and exhaustion. I looked where she was pointing.

Keller.

He was sitting on the ground, closer to the burning building than I liked to see. His knees were drawn up towards his chest and his forearms rested on them. His eyes were fixed on the flames, creating an eerie moving shadow across his fine features. His beautiful blue eyes looked black in the absence of light.

I felt a heaviness lift; Keller was safe. For a second I started to feel lighter, but then I saw his face.

I nodded to Sip and Lisabelle and raced over to him, not caring who saw me. This was no time to stand on ceremony, his aunt be d.a.m.ned. As I reached him I collapsed, sliding on my knees until I was next to him.

"I thought it was you," I breathed. "I thought you were the one keeping the doorway clear." I shuddered as my mind involuntarily went back to the reaching fire, the grasping smoke, and the room I didn't think we would ever get out of.

Keller turned to me. His eyes were filled with a deep pain. He was looking at ghosts that only he could see, and I felt my stomach clench. I tried to breathe, but the air wouldn't come.

"Keller?" I gasped. "What is it? What's wrong? We're safe. You and I and Sip and Lisabelle, we're all safe. What's wrong?" I nearly cried. I wanted to shake him.

Keller opened his mouth, but no words came out. He blinked several times and tried again to speak. I sat there staring at him, not daring to breathe myself. Breathing could wait. What was Keller trying to tell me? If not Keller, who had helped us out of the Tower?

"It wasn't me that held the door," he said finally, quietly. He bit his lower lip. "I got there as the flames started to come out the windows and I didn't have the power to get to you."

I knew how much he must hate to admit that he wasn't strong enough to fly to the higher reaches of the Tower. "I helped people on the lower levels get out. It was all I could do. At that point, there was no way to get higher, no way to get above the flames." He swallowed hard. "It wasn't me that held the door." The words sounded like an apology.

"But Keller," I insisted, "someone helped us. Someone kept the door clear, they kept the fire back while we got out. I thought it was you, because then you could just fly out a window. It wasn't a professor . . . the magic was too simple."

I choked. I had breathed in so much smoke that it hurt to use my voice, but I needed desperately to explain what I had seen, and try to understand what had happened. I glanced at the burning Tower, which was now totally engulfed in flames. It had stood as a place of strength, where we gathered every day to eat and learn and be together. It was beautiful, by far the tallest building on campus. Who could ever have thought that it would fall? One of the first images that had greeted me when I arrived at Public with Sip was the gla.s.s Tower striped in rainbows, now all but destroyed.

"It wasn't me," he said again. His voice rasped, and I looked at him frantically as he continued to stare blankly at the flames. Wondering if he was in shock, or hurt, without invitation I grabbed his arm. It was a big step for me, because I didn't usually touch people, but I had to make sure he was there, solid and real and unhurt.

He was.

"Keller. . . ."

I turned to look at the crumbling Tower one more time. Panes of gla.s.s were sliding off it, released by heat, destroyed by burning, their sole remaining function to cause pain.

At the very top, in the only place where there was still no fire, I thought I saw something move in the window. Just a flutter, barely visible. My stomach clenched.

Then the Tower was obscured by the waves of hot air coming off the fire and the roiling smoke, which was growing ever thicker. I hoped whoever had locked me in that room was burning with it.

Without thinking I pushed to my feet. My legs cried out in protest and my hands throbbed as I used them for leverage. I would have to go to the infirmary yet again, but it was going to have to wait. After the fire finished with the Tower I would have all the time in the world to go to the infirmary.

Behind me Keller tried to say something, to reach for me, but I ignored him.

I staggered towards the burning building, feeling the heat slam my face, an evil greeting from a growing/raging/familiar foe. I tried hard to ignore the glee emanating from the flames that licked the walls of my home. I couldn't go much further, but I didn't need to. The clouds of smoke parted for a moment. Through the rippling night air I could now see what was framed in the highest window of the Tower.

It was a pale face, familiar and kind, with bright red cheeks.

I gave a cry and sank to my knees. Behind me, I heard Lisabelle screaming.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

Involuntarily, I grabbed a bit of watery mud and looked around. Everywhere were scattered bits of burning debris. Steeling myself for the pain I knew was coming, I grabbed up a very small piece of charred building material. It still glowed like an ember, but to my surprise it didn't burn me. I dropped it in with the mud and clenched the whole mess together in my hand. I felt gla.s.s bite into my flesh as I lifted my fist in front of my face and blew.

Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Elemental. Me. With desperation I tried to order the flames to subside, but I couldn't. There was no magic left in me. I had let it all race away. No, I had encouraged it to go. Now I was going to pay for my recklessness with the life of one of my best friend.

Tears p.r.i.c.ked at my eyes, but I didn't have the energy to cry. The only thing that kept flashing through my mind was Lough's grinning face, trying to do laundry, trying to say simple sentences to Lisabelle, standing up for all of us and braving hanging out with three girls.

Now his life was at the top of the Tower and there was no way to get to him.

Anguish forced the sob coming up my throat back down. This was too serious for screaming.

Suddenly Lisabelle was next to me. Her grip felt like nails biting into the flesh of my arm and I stared into a pair of manic black eyes.

"He does not die," she said, her voice hollow with too much emotion. "He is the best of us. And he does. Not. Die."

I nodded numbly. As an elemental, normally I would have some control over fire, but as I had just proved, I had no power left. I cursed myself again for not properly resting before I attempted this. Whoever had done this to the Tower had been waiting for me to show up and when I had, they had set it ablaze.

"I have an idea," said Lisabelle, her voice becoming thick with desperation, moving towards me as if she was trying to push against a fierce tide. "Take my hand."

I stared blankly at it until she snapped her fingers together.

"Take my hand," she repeated. This time I grasped her cold fingers in my own numb ones. When we locked eyes I knew she could see the question shining plainly out of mine. Now what?

"Now," said Lisabelle. "I give you strength and you destroy that fire."

Shocked, I started to protest, but she only squeezed my hand harder.

Instead of arguing, I closed my eyes. I had never heard of anything like this before, one mage giving strength to another. I didn't know how it would work, especially because our magics were different. Darkness was its own particular brand of dangerous. Mine was elemental, and it was not even clear how much elemental power I had. I knew I had power with water, but it remained to be seen whether I had power with the other three branches. If we were lucky, I even had power over fire. Lisabelle might be able to give me strength, but I could never use darkness magic just as she could never have command over the elemental powers.

"Stay calm," said Lisabelle. Her voice was soft, almost rhythmic. "Steady breaths."

I tried to relax, even with my friend about to die in front of me, because I knew that if I was calm my body would be more willing to accept something foreign, like Lisabelle's raw power.

The first thing I realized when I opened myself up to Lisabelle was the staggering amount of power she had. It was like a marble to a mountain compared to what I had thought. Her whole being was consumed in black energy. No wonder everyone gave her some distance, and no wonder Risper was so well respected. If he had anywhere near as much power as Lisabelle, and his behavior over the course of the semester hinted that he did, he deserved to be feared.

The next thing I realized was that my body wanted to accept the power from her. It would only be for a short time, it wasn't as if our magics could ever be confused. She could only give me power, not actual spells.

My next intake of breath found my limbs flooded with dark energy. My knees started to knock together and I knew that in another second my head would start to pound.

But in the next second, instead of cowering away, what little power I had was ushering Lisabelle's darkness through my own familiar channels, forging ahead towards my ring and towards release. I felt stronger, a hundred times stronger, as if the sun had suddenly started to shine inside me. I could do anything. I could force the flame to submit.

I ordered my rejuvenated power forward. Never opening my eyes, I felt for the heat in front of me and demanded that it disappear. I didn't call rain, or water from the ground. I simply ordered the fire extinguished. It was the fastest thing I knew how to do. Next to me, Lisabelle was gripping my fingers so hard I wasn't sure where my hand started and hers finished. I just focused on feeding my power into stopping the fire. I don't know how long the two of us stood like that, entwined in bodies and fear, but eventually Sip's voice entered my consciousness. "Open your eyes," her voice screamed in my ear.

I could feel power screaming around me. I had eaten up the power Lisabelle was giving me and drawn more, as if her body was a bucket filled with water that I was tapping.

"OPEN YOUR EYES," Sip screamed again.

This time I listened.

Before me the world swam. Instead of one blond head in front of me I saw three Sips, each a little more blurry than the one before.

"Is this what it's like to be drunk?" I asked weakly, trying to focus.

"I wouldn't know," said Sip, glaring at me as if I had been caught stealing a cookie.

"No," said Lisabelle. "Usually there's making out involved in being drunk."

"I'd love to know where you drink," I said, trying to grin. Lisabelle grinned back, then collapsed to the ground, her legs no longer strong enough to hold her upright. Since our fingers were still entwined, I too was forced to my knees, which was just as well, because I couldn't stand upright any longer either.

I looked towards the Tower.

We had dealt with the flame. It now resembled a raging candle more than a burning building, which is to say that as far as the fire itself went, it wasn't dangerous any more. But what we hadn't dealt with, the problem we didn't know how to solve, was how high up Lough was. Casting around for a solution, I thought briefly of sending a water spout upwards, in the hope that he could somehow ride it down and that it would cushion his fall. But I just didn't have the strength.

All this for a stupid sc.r.a.p of paper written by the undead.

"How do we get him down?" Sip cried in frustration. There was no way the stairs up to the top of the Tower were usable. It was a good thing Sip was working on it, because Lisabelle and I were now both useless.

But just then I saw something swoop through the darkness, a ma.s.sive bird in flight, only much more graceful.

"Who is that?"

"A fallen angel," Sip breathed, her eyes locked on the same movement that had caught mine.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Lisabelle gasped out.

"You'd think as tired as you are you'd stop mouthing off," Sip said.

"I'd have to be dead," Lisabelle a.s.sured her.

"It's Professor Erikson," said Lisabelle, squinting. "She's going to get Lough."

And she was.

I could barely make out Lough's face, there just appeared to be a tiny white blot at the top of a towering black ma.s.s that was the charred remains of Public's centerpiece.

Professor Erikson had reached the window Lough was peering out of, and in a matter of moments he was safely on the ground, being whisked away to the infirmary. He looked pale and covered in soot, but there were no visible injuries.

"Why isn't anyone whisking us?" Lisabelle asked forlornly. She was becoming delirious.

Just then Risper strode towards us. Without so much as a word he scooped up his niece and started to carry her away. She waved happily, and before she disappeared I heard her say, "Now, don't go thinking you can pick me up whenever you feel like it. Paranormals might think I'm soft. This is a special occasion."

My view of my darkness friend was blocked by Keller, who was striding towards me. Even with smoke swirling around him, I could see his perfect blue eyes shining. The darkness was gone. My eyes flicked to his aunt, who was standing a good distance away, watching us.

Without a word Keller bent down, scooped me up in his arms as if I weighed as much as a kitten, and kissed me. I was so shocked that at first I forgot to kiss him back. I wouldn't be winning any kissing awards any time soon, but hopefully he wouldn't care.

Don't worry, I remembered pretty quickly.

And the kiss . . . oh my. Suddenly my arms started to work and they clamped around his neck, holding him close. He was better than the best healing drug. When he tried to pull away I couldn't let him, and I could feel him laughing against my mouth. It sent warm shivers cascading down my arms. Maybe everything would be okay after all.

Chapter Thirty-Four.

This time we weren't taken to the infirmary. Thankfully. I was tired of that place and I was really tired of spending more time there than I did in Astra. Keller had been virtually ripped from me by his aunt, who I'm sure was furious, but I was equally sure that Keller wouldn't care. At least not much.

I barely remember being laid in bed. I was asleep before another thought could run through my brain.

Some time much later I rolled over, just wanting to keep my eyes closed. My body felt like it had been beaten all over with sticks and I didn't even want to test my magic. Instead, I did the only thing I could think to do. I went back to sleep.

The next time I awoke there was an argument going on around me. And bright lights. Instinctively I threw my arm over my eyes.

"She's awake," said a rasping voice. It sounded familiar, but I couldn't believe it. He hadn't been seen in weeks.