"It's not the government we're worried about, Millie. We have a workforce of over 800 women. People are nervy enough about that, how do you think the public would react to the fact that the largest female-owned, female-staffed company in the world was sponsoring witchcraft? There would be mobs at the gates ready to raze this place to the ground. Do you know what one crazy can do to those hydrogen tanks out there? And what would happen if they did?"

  It didn't take much imagination to do so, and the image of it came unbidden into Millie's mind fully formed. She remembered from one of the early safety lectures that hydrogen fire was invisible, and it made her think of Elise and Vickie screaming as they simply melted away with no apparent cause.

  "We formed EVE because we believe in its mission, and that we had the resources to help carry it out. The rules we set when we did are there for a reason. So no, I don't wonder why you helped Katherine, I understand that perfectly well. What I don't understand is why you betrayed our trust."

  It was if someone had opened a spigot in Millie's foot and everything in her began draining out to pool on the floor. Whatever pride or certainty she'd brought in with her was gone in moments, forced out of her in three words.

  Betrayed our trust.

  To that, Millie had no answer, and neither did Elise.

  "You two have a lot to learn about humility. You risked everything you've been handed to prove how right you are. Well, there is more to this," Eustacia gestured all around her, including the sheds in the distance, "more to EVE than just 'right.' It's not as black-and-white as you think it is, and you need to start thinking more than a foot in front of your faces."

  Ophelia sighed, turning to face them fully, her hands in her lap. She and her sister were winning the argument, but yet somehow still looked defeated. "We understand. We sincerely do. You've been given abilities that are, frankly, beyond my comprehension, and we are asking you to not use them when they could make a difference. You have every right to feel aggrieved, even angry. The world has dealt you an awful hand in virtually everything else, and the temptation to act like you owe it nothing must be overwhelming. I dare not imagine how hard it must be for you two to have to hide almost everything about your true selves every time you step outside. We're not heartless."

  "As such, we will not be punishing you for what you've done, this time." Eustacia was careful to emphasise the last two words, letting them settle in before she continued. "We are not your mothers, but we are your employers. Please remember that. I like to think we are friends as well, but we are your employers first and foremost, and like any employer, we must insist that our employees, no matter how extraordinary, follow the rules."

  "Please. Please do as we ask. EVE's time will come, but that time is not here yet. Until then, it will be hard. So much of what we ask of you is hard, we know."

  "Elise, your kind heart is admirable, and we are very proud to count you among us. The infirmary has never been a better place than it is now with you in it. But," Eustacia said, "you need to give us your word that this 'miracle' is a one-off, and that the Angel of Longstown will not be making any more unauthorised visits."

  Elise was staring at the floor, and for the first time since they had been together, Millie didn't know what she was thinking. A thousand thoughts were racing behind her eyes, too many to pick out just one. But when they raised again to look at the Longs, there was only one thought that looked out.

  "I agree. I am not sorry for what I did, but I agree for the safety of the other workers, and my sister witches."

  "Thank you," Eustacia said, the relief on her face subtracting a decade from her countenance.

  "And you, Millie. Your loyalty is to Elise first, we know," Ophelia said, the faintest trace of a smile struggling to lift her lips, "will you agree, as well?"

  At the word 'loyalty,' Millie felt the word 'betrayed' echo it in her mind. Her head fell forward, not quite a nod as an apology. "I agree as well. And I too, am not sorry for helping Katherine. But I am sorry for betraying your trust. That was not our intention."

  "We know. We were young too, once, if you can believe it."

  "Thank you," Elise said suddenly, drawing all eyes to her.

  "For what?"

  "For your understanding. Others would not. You tolerate much with grace. I will try to be more worthy of it in the future."

  "Elise, my dear, you are worthy of it, otherwise you wouldn't be here. Now get out before you make me cry. Both of you," Ophelia said with a wave at the door.

  For the first time since she was a little girl, Millie curtseyed in earnest, which made the other three pairs of eyes in the room go wide in disbelief.

  Ignoring them for the sake of maintaining her sincerity, Millie spun on her heel and opened the door for Elise.

  When they were outside and had plunged into the slowly lifting fog again, Millie allowed herself to breathe normally once more. "That could have gone a lot worse," she said, shoving her hands into her pockets against the mist and the need to hold Elise's.

  "I know. We are very lucky."

  That word again. Luck.

  Shaking it from her head, something else thankfully popped in to take its place.

  "The Angel of Longstown," Millie said with a lopsided grin as they strolled at a leisurely pace down the gravel path home. "At least I'm not the only one who thinks you wear a halo now."

  A smile crinkled the corners of Elise's eyes as they looked up to arrest Millie's. "Then you are my red devil."

  Millie made a flourishing gesture forward. "Then allow me to lead thee down the path to temptation."

  As Elise's laughter burst into the gloom, the first rays of sun found their way through to their smiling faces.

  Nothingness flared to light. Streaks of flame, hissing and roaring as they devoured oxygen and magic in equal parts, comets with bright white heads slashed the darkness to ribbons, leaving its shattered remains as shadows on the floor.

  Katya's hands pulled and pushed, guiding her children as they they shot up and out, twin arcs that spanned over a hundred feet before snapping back to her an inch off the concrete floor, leaving rooster tails of incinerated dust behind them.

  Flaring out around her feet, they missed her by inches as they flew past and continued into the void until they were tiny points at the far end of The Shed. With a mental yank, they returned to hover overhead for a few ecstatic breaths before they began chasing one another, spinning out into a blazing circle. The head of one sought the tail of the other, her twin flames spiralling over her so fast it looked like she was wearing a halo of hellfire. Longer and longer each streak grew until they merged into one, a solid ring that slowly began to expand.

  Pouring more and more magic into it, Katya was in tune with her power as she had never been before. Wider and wider the ring of fire grew, and her smile spread to match.

  Down it came, swirling around her, the hot air moving so quickly her skirt and hair were blown about, buffeted by the currents she was scything into the roiling air.

  Faster! she commanded, and the fire obeyed. She felt the heat on her arms and now her legs, even as her face was buffeted by curtains of white, preventing her from seeing what was happening.

  But she didn't need her eyes to see it. She felt it. She was it.

  As with a lover, Katya danced with her creation and she laughed, spinning with it as it caressed her skin with tendrils of arcane warmth.

  "Impressive."

  All at once, the ring of fire shattered, sending sparks flying in every direction as Katya's concentration collapsed.

  Clad, as always, in greys and blacks, Victoria's face was the only part of her Katya could make out through her own hair in the flash-blinded darkness, but she was gratified to see that it bore a look of genuine respect.

  Seeing it only made Katya feel worse about having not earned it sooner. "I didn't hear you come in," she said, smoothing her skirt back out and getting her hair into some kind of order, even if that order was only 'down.'

  "Ghosting doesn't make any noise."

  "You came through the wall?"

  Victoria nodded, crossing the distance between them in silence.

  "I can't say I'm thrilled to hear that," Katya said.

  "I remember what you said, but—"

  "No, I don't mean that. Something more basic: I'm rather used to others coming in through the door! You can't just pop into existence like that."

  Victoria shrugged. "I didn't walk into your bedroom. This is a shared practice space. I practiced," she said, splitting one of the black streaks on the ground with her shoe. "What were you working on?"

  "Dancing."

  "With fire?"

  It was Katya's turn to shrug. "It's mine. It does as I ask."

  "And you asked it to dance?"

  "Is that a problem?"

  "Of course not. I just never thought of it that way. Have you always had such an affinity for it? Fire, I mean. You seem so at ease with it."

  Katya's face fell. "No. No, I— it's a long story."

  Victoria looked about them into the blackness beyond, the utter nothing that defined their twin pools of witchlight. "It seems we have time."

  "Is that why you came out here? To hear a story?" Katya turned her hand over, putting her palm towards the floor. From the centre, a single droplet of flame emerged, clinging to her skin the same way water clings to a ceiling. When it was big enough, the tension broke and it was surrendered to gravity.

  Just before it hit the floor, Katya took it back, and the little glowing sphere hovered a few scant inches above the concrete.

  "It seems we have a lot of them to tell," Victoria said. "But, if you don't want to tell me, I have many other questions. I'm good at that."

  Katya laughed. "I did get that impression."

  "And the only thing I like more than a question is an answer. What is it you said to me? 'I'm going to find out anyway, so you might as well tell me?' Something to that effect."

  "And what was it you said? 'You'll make do with what I choose to show you?'"

  "Touché." Victoria seemed to consider something. "Did I really say it like that?"

  "More or less. A bit less haughtily, maybe."

  Victoria kicked what must have been an errant mote of dust, because Katya didn't see anything where her foot went. "I am an insufferable ass sometimes." She looked up. "I don't expect you to disagree."

  "Good," Katya said. "I suppose it takes one to know one, however." Her smile faded. "It's a painful story, Victoria. More than you know. I don't tell it often."

  "Then you don't have to tell me. It's not as though I've earned it."

  "Oh, self-deprecation won't save you now. Thus, a proposal: I tell you the fire story, you tell me the tattoo story."

  "Fair enough."

  Katya looked about them to the bare floor. "I don't suppose you can conjure chairs, can you?"

  "Not yet," Victoria said, her smile impish. "But we can walk to my office." She gestured to her right, leading them in the direction of her work area, though how she knew which direction was which in pitch blackness was another mystery.

  But Katya was eager to start. If she didn't now, she wasn't going to at all. Deep within her, there was an aching to tell the story, as perverse a thought as it was. Even though dredging up the memory would hurt, perhaps the significance of doing so would help to heal the wound.

  "I was eleven years old," she began as they walked. "There was a fire at my home. A candle that hadn't been blown out, apparently. I awoke in the dead of night smelling smoke."

  Arriving at Victoria's desk, Katya took Victoria's chair as her log appeared from nowhere and Victoria sat down so that they faced each other.

  Katya continued, "When I opened my door, a wall of fire burst through it. It happened so fast. My hair caught, my eyebrows burned off in an instant. Looking back, it was more scary than painful in that moment; the pain didn't come until later. I thought I was dead. I screamed and screamed, but I couldn't leave my room. I don't remember if I actually could have, I just remember the flames outside my door, and my body simply refusing to move. I couldn't take that first step.

  "The smoke got thicker, and I was on my knees when I heard my father's voice. 'Katya, Katya, I'm coming!' he said. When he reached me, there were holes burned in his clothes and his skin and eyes were red, but he came for me. He picked me up and ran out into the snow. He set me down and said he had to go back in for my mother. A beam had fallen on her, but she insisted my father save me first. But he couldn't go back in. The flames were too hot, too much of the house had fallen apart."

  Katya felt her eyes swell with unshed tears, her lower lip trembling slightly. "He chose me. He could only save one of us, and he chose me."

  She took a deep breath before she could continue. "My mother died that night. Only a few of her bones were left by the time the fire was out. It nearly destroyed my father. He never stopped blaming himself, always thinking that he could have found some way to save both of us." She shook her head. "Impossible. He barely got out with me. But if I had been braver, if I had tried to get out on my own…"

  "You were a child. A terrified child who'd just had her hair burned off. You can't blame yourself for that," Victoria said.

  "The adult knows that. The little girl who's still in here," Katya said, tapping the side of her head, "still does. She always will."

  Neither of them spoke.

  It wasn't her mother's death that kept Katya from telling the story, however. It was her own reaction. Every time she so much as thought about that night, she was a terrified little girl again, standing in her nightclothes as her home burned down around her. The shame she felt, and knew she would always feel, was what kept it bottled up within her.

  All she'd done was stand there, horrified at what was happening, unable to move. She was alive and her mother was dead. She'd never screamed. In the worst pain it was possible to endure, she'd burned to ash in silence to keep her daughter from being frightened.

  Running her hand through her hair, Katya was reminded of a better way to end her story than on crippling shame.

  "When my hair finally grew back," she said gratefully, "it was white. I don't know why. My grandmother said it was the first sign of my magic revealing itself, but I've never seen another witch with white hair."

  "Not one so young, anyway," Victoria said.

  Katya felt a smile suggest that one may not be entirely out of order, even through the sniffles. "True."

  "So it's not an affectation? It really is that colour?"

  Katya nodded. "Yes. There are days when I am fond of it, and others that I rue it. Before the fire, it looked just like my mother's." Katya paused at the word. "At least I still have her eyes."

  "Something we have in common. They still get to see the world that way."

  "That's a very nice sentiment."

  "I do manage them sometimes," Victoria said. "Thank you for sharing."

  "Not at all," Katya lied. Not even Zoya knew that story, and she seemed to know most everything else. Now that Katya thought about it, Victoria might be the only living person who had heard it.

  "But that makes your Manifest all the more astonishing," Victoria said suddenly, her brain obviously having kicked over into the part that sought understanding from things that didn't want to be understood. "After such a horrific experience with fire, that you should Manifest that way is almost cruel."

  "In a way, it has been helpful."

  "Oh?"

  "The fire outside of me is chaotic and uncontrolled. The fire that killed my mother and burned down my home was cruel and wanton. The fire that rages across Russia now is malevolent and destructive. This? This is me."

  To prove her point, a fireball came to life in Katya's hand, a perfect teardrop of orange and yellow. It sat in her palm unmoving, and should have burned her past the point of blistering in moments, but she held it as serenely as she would have water. "It's mine. It will only ever do what I say, to be used as I wish. To help or to harm, but it won't hurt me."

  "It's beautiful," Victoria said.

  "Thank you. You can make fire as well, though."

  "Not in the same way. You can make it from nothing, then bend and shape it to your will. I have to have something to work with. Something I can heat up. I don't generate fire itself, per se. I set things on fire. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

  "It's all right. It's true. How do you do it?"

  "I excite the molecules to the point of combustion."

  Katya looked down at the blackened log. "And when you want it to stop? You just… stop them?"

  "I don't stop them, just return them to normal. Stopping them completely would put them at absolute zero."

  "What? Degrees?"

  "Sort of. It's theoretically the lowest possible temperature, where all motion, even molecular motion, stops. It's also, theoretically, impossible to actually achieve, so I suppose the lowest possible temperature is just above it. A bit of a contradiction, admittedly."

  Katya stared at Victoria in admiration. "You really are quite fond of this, aren't you? I can see it in your eyes. They light up unlike when you speak about anything else."

  "It's in my blood. My father was a doctor of physics, though he went into teaching soon after I was born."

  "And your mother?"

  "Less specialised, but she loved the sciences as much as he did. Though she was never allowed to attend university, and thus never had the paperwork to prove it."

  "Because she was a woman, I suppose," Katya spat.

  "Because of me and my brother. They weren't expecting twins," Victoria said sheepishly. "And my mother was not going to allow her children to be raised by anyone else. Especially her daughter."

  "Why is that?"

  "She didn't want me to fall into any bad habits that might be instilled by someone who used terms like 'proper lady.'"

  "She didn't want you to be a proper lady?"

  "'Proper' is just a contraction of 'property.'"

  Puzzlement crept across Katya's face. Her tutors had never mentioned that.

  "Not literally," Victoria supplied.

 

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