Fire.

I hear the smash of glass and then my apartment erupts. There's nothing quite like watching all you've built, the meager life you've scraped together, burn away before your eyes. To see the one place you thought was safe transformed into Hell itself.

Lis retreats, but I stay motionless.

The backlash, the violent and violative counterpart to that crowd at GirlCon, has truly descended.

"Kam?" I don't want this to be real.

"Kam." Maybe it's a dream.

"KAM!" The fear in Lis' voice is what gets me to leap up. I stride over to the fire, tail coiling as my tip flattens and spreads wide.

I swipe with it in a horizontal line, summoning a gust that cools the blaze and pushes the smoke back into its midst. The lack of oxygen disrupts it just enough that the inferno dims. I do it again. And again. Each time, more smoke billows off, choking the flames further.

By the time it's down to a few, scattered flames, I'm tired and my lungs burn. I'm furious, too, and take to slamming my tail into the embers. I keep going long after the flame's gone out, content to keep fighting the Hell I made simply by choosing to love someone.

When the firefighters arrive a few minutes later, all that remains is the charred remnants of my TV and the $20 stand I bought online. Everything else is cinders. Still, they demand we clear out. I ask if I can take a few things with me. Whoever I speak to is kind enough to say yes.

I meet Lis out on the street, where she's back to pacing nervously. She sees me, and I clock the way her ears flatten. "What the hell was that?"

"Molotov cocktail, is what they're thinking."

"Not that. You."

"I was panicked, Lis."

"I've seen you panicked. Don't lie to me."

I let out a hollow, mirthless laugh. "What do you want me to say, Lis?"

"Tell me that it wasn't what it looked like. Tell me that if I wasn't there, you wouldn't have let that just happen to you."

When I don't say anything, she just sighs.

"I can't be here for you if that's your choice."

"Lis..." I take a step toward her.

She retreats again, curling in on herself. "I'm sorry, Kam. I just... maybe it makes me a coward, maybe I'm being a bad friend and a worse partner, but... I can't."

"Please don't go."

Lis shakes her head. "I would, if you wanted to stay."

I can't even deny it, and with that Lis gives me a nod. "I'm sorry." I can tell I'm breaking her heart, and I hate that I can't comfort her; to do anything to make it better because I am, undeniably, to blame for it.

She steps back, drifting into the crowd of people milling about, and goes.

My apartment's a crime scene. Lis won't speak to me. I have nothing and nobody and Rax is in custody.

Numbly, I start to wander. I don't even know where the fuck I'm going until I end up at an abandoned aqueduct intake. The same one Rax used to hide out.

I step inside and I'm transported.

Nothing's changed. Everything is as it once was. And yet I see it for the squalid hole it is, maybe for the first time. This was home, though. The first, real home I ever had.

Now it's lesser.

Rax is gone.

I can't stop thinking it.

Rax is gone.

He gave this place warmth.

Rax is gone.

I go to find my "room", if one can call an electrical service alcove as much. The web of lights that Rax strung up are still here. Even more surprising, the power's still working. I flick on the lights and curl up into the stained mattress.

Finally, I rest.

There's nothing in my dreams.

I don't know that I even deserve them. All I deserve is the inky black of a restless sleep.

Even then, though, I can't remain unbothered. I feel something at the edge of my consciousness. It's not Tiana, but it gives me just the slightest glimmer of affection. It urges me to open my eyes.

And then I wake to a black-clad figure aiming a gun at my head. On instinct, my tail lashes out — the shot goes wide, but I see the telltale muzzle flash of a Null round: a neon gradient of oranges, purples, and greens laden with sparking runes.

Wasting no time, I swat at the pistol again.

It goes clattering to the floor, out of reach of whoever this is. They look at it, look back to me, and make a break for it.

I spear through the trigger assembly with my stinger tip just as they grab for it. They glance back at me, and I can see the scowl through the thin mask over their face.

They grab my tail as it retracts and bear down, yanking me with a strength I didn't realize they'd have for someone so small.

I don't have time to brace.

I'm aloft and careening for one of the concrete support pillars by the time I realize what's happening.

Then I'm crushing through it.

It rips the air from my singed lungs, the angle I connected at knocking me off course to clip against another pillar before I tumble into the floor.

I stand, grimacing, and see my assailant hasn't closed the gap. "I should thank you," I say.

They tilt their head, curious.

"An hour ago, I'd just about given up. Maybe I still have, but now? Now I'm gonna kick your ass."

My assailant squares up, and there's something familiar about the stance they're taking. The echo of a memory issues forth from some long forgotten place, but I can't pinpoint it.

Head in the game, Kam.

I'm about to make my first move when my assailant rushes me. They're fast, and it takes every bit of reflex I can muster to block a jab to my stomach. A jab I didn't block last night when Tiana—

I almost panic and take a hit to the jaw, but I don't feel her.

It's not Tiana.

But it is someone who fights like her. That give me an idea. A painful, stupid one, but an idea nonetheless.

This time, I do take the hit my assailant delivers. My footing falters, but it's worth it. The blow gives my tail room to cut a gash through the all-black outfit they're wearing.

Underneath, I see dark blue fabric. Small, arcane motes of light drift through the weave, glittering like a starfield slowly wheeling through a night sky. I know it intimately. Seen it up close when Tiana wears it on occasion.

It's a Magisorcerer's uniform.

Lindsey wore it a decade ago.

She sees me put it together, and scowls under the mask. Gripping something from her belt, she cartwheels away.

The flashbang's clink against the concrete registers. I bat it with my tail, sending it skittering into the dark. The concussive force pushes me back a bit, but I recover fast.

Not fast enough, though: it was a diversion. She's weaving together runes, pulling on arcane power. Unlike Tiana, it's a spell she hasn't practiced enough for it to be second nature.

I try to close the gap, but there's no point. She blinks away before I can I stop her.

Breathing hard, I fall to one knee. My lungs burn. How the fuck did she find me here? Nobody knows about this place. The only way she'd know is if Rax told her.

But he wouldn't.

The man I know wouldn't.

A thrall would, though.

A thrall would have no choice.

A thrall would obey.

I think I'm going to be sick from that, until a void opens up in me.

A sudden, painful absence grips me. Gone are the array of emotions and feelings I've come to think of as mine as much as hers. It's not just distance.

I can't feel her anymore.

I can't feel Tiana.