by Zoe Chant
“Well now, maybe you will some day.” Tanner winked at Fenrir. “He still drops by from time to time.”
Blaise left them to their fun, though not without shooting Tanner an exasperated glare. Ducking round Wystan—who was displaying photos of Estelle to an admiring audience of C-squad firefighters—she headed for the grill.
“Gather you were some kind of fire chief,” Buck was saying as Blaise came into earshot of the conversation. “Structural, right?”
“East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. Almost forty years.”
“Pretty impressive. Ever do anything apart from firefighting?”
Ash prodded a steak. “I was in the military, for a time.”
Buck swatted Ash’s tongs away from the food again. “I told you, don’t keep poking it. Lets the juices out. Military, huh? Same here. U.S. Marines.”
“My daughter has told me a little of your history. Thank you for your service.”
“Don’t do that either. So what were you? Army?”
“No,” Ash said, his gaze on the sizzling meat. “I was a weapon.”
*Quit trying to intimidate him,* Blaise sent to him. *It won’t work.*
“So I am discovering,” her father said out loud, making Buck shoot him a funny look. “Hello, Blaise.”
“Hi, Dad.” Blaise nodded at Buck. “Chief. Thought I’d come see how it was going over here.”
Buck raised an eyebrow. “Checking on the food, or checking that we aren’t swapping embarrassing stories about you and Zeph?”
Blaise narrowed her eyes at her dad. “Don’t you dare.”
“I would not,” Ash replied with total sincerity. He put a steak on a paper plate. “Your mother made me promise not to relate any anecdotes from your childhood.”
“Good.”
“Mainly,” Ash added, handing the plate to the next pair of eager hands, “because she tells the stories much better. In her opinion.”
“Oh no.” Blaise looked at Buck in dismay. “Please tell me she hasn’t been talking to you.”
“Me?” The Superintendent looked far too innocent for comfort. “Been standing here all evening, chatting with your dad. You should know, seeing as how you’ve been giving us the hairy eyeball the whole time.”
Blaise let out her breath. It was true, she hadn’t seen her mother anywhere near the grill.
In fact, now that she came to think of it, she’d barely seen her mother at all.
“Wait,” she said, a terrible suspicion forming in her stomach. “Where is Mom?”
Ash tranquilly flipped a steak. “I couldn’t say.”
“He really can’t,” Buck added. “Gave his word and all. Sure am glad I don’t have a mate. Seems like nothing but trouble.”
“It has its advantages,” her father murmured.
Buck’s grunt conveyed deep skepticism. “Maybe you should try asking a different question, Blaise. Like what your mom is doing, while we’re here keeping you distracted.”
Blaise stared at them both.
Ash contemplated the star-strewn sky, the smallest of smiles tugging at his lips. “I believe she is currently showing Zephyr your baby photos.”
“Oh, this one’s my favorite,” Rose said happily, flicking to the next picture. “Such chubby cheeks. Oooo, and just look at those cute overalls!”
Zephyr forced a smile, while wistful fantasies about summoning the Thunderbird played in his mind. Disappearing into the dream realm had never seemed so appealing.
“I shouldn’t monopolize you like this,” he attempted, yet again. “I’m sure Rory and the others want to catch up with you.”
“Oh, they can wait. Getting to know my daughter’s mate is far more important. And look, we’ve still got…” She squinted at the phone screen and beamed. “Two thousand, eight hundred and six photos left!”
Zephyr made a sound that attempted to feign polite enthusiasm. It came out more like a death rattle.
As if in answer to his prayers, the door of Buck’s office slammed against the wall. Zephyr’s relief plummeted straight to horror as Blaise burst into the room. He made a lightning grab for the phone in Rose’s hand, missed, and fell off the desk.
“Hello, love,” Rose said calmly, not looking up from the screen. “Took you long enough.”
Blaise’s snatch for the phone was a lot faster than his own had been. Zephyr still had a sneaking suspicion that Rose let her take it.
“Mom! How could you—” Blaise stopped, blinking at the device. “Wait a sec. This isn’t your phone. And that’s not… holy shit, is that Zeph?”
“Wasn’t he just the cutest toddler?” Rose said. “Oh, scroll back. There’s a picture where he’s wearing a bowl of spaghetti as a hat, with the most priceless expression on his little face. It should be a meme.”
The temptation to crawl under his uncle’s desk and remain there for the rest of his life was nearly overwhelming.
With a sigh, Zephyr got to his feet. “I suppose there’s no point asking for my phone back.”
Blaise held the device out of reach. “Hey, fair’s fair. You looked at my baby photos, so I get to laugh my ass off at yours.”
“Actually,” Rose murmured. “He didn’t. That’s why he’s showing me his family photos.”
Blaise stared at her, and then him.
Zephyr shrugged, grimacing. “You did tell me once that you didn’t want me to see any pictures of you before the age of nineteen. And your mother drives a hard bargain.”
Rose patted his cheek. “I approve of this one, love. You should keep him.”
“That’s the plan.” Blaise’s tone was flippant, but her brown eyes were soft. “I need to talk to my mate, Mom. If you’re quite done tormenting him.”
“For now,” Rose said cheerfully. She winked at him, and cold dread ran down Zephyr’s spine. “You can show me the rest another time. I bet you were just adorable at the age of ten.”
She sauntered out, closing the door behind her. Zephyr collapsed into the office chair with a groan.
“And to think I was worried about meeting your father,” he mumbled.
“Yeah, sorry. I probably should have warned you that he’s my least terrifying parent.” Blaise tossed him his phone, a smirk tugging at her mouth. “Baby photos, huh?”
“My mom’s archive. She kept everything backed up to the cloud.” He started to put the phone back in his pocket, then hesitated. “Would you like to see?”
“You with spaghetti on your head? Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Not that one.” He thumbed through pictures for a moment. “Here.”
Blaise perched on the edge of the desk, angling her head to see the screen. The wicked tilt to her grin faded.
“Oh,” she said softly.
“I like your mom.” He looked down at the screen, at that moment frozen in time. The bright colors swam together, his vision blurring. “I wish you could have met mine.”
Blaise touched his shoulder, gently, just for a second. “Me too. Is that your dad?”
“Yes. Well, stepdad, actually. He and my mom met when I was eleven, through the Storm Society. Married a year later.” He swiped the screen, showing her the wedding photo. “Ignore my expression. I was annoyed about the suit.”
Blaise’s lips twitched. “Yeah, I think we’ve established that you and formalwear don’t mix. Shit, is that Buck in the uniform? He’s actually smiling.”
Zephyr smiled too. “Buck didn’t really have anything in common with my stepdad, but my uncle could see that he made my mom happy. That was enough.”
Blaise looked at him, studying his face. “Do you have any pictures of your biological father?”
He shook his head. “I never knew him. Left before I was born. He wasn’t thunderkin, you see. My great-grandma—the leader of the Storm Society at the time—had a strict policy of secrecy regarding our connection to the Thunderbirds. Even people from thunderkin bloodlines had to join the society and swear to keep the secret before they were entrusted with the truth. But
when my mom discovered she was pregnant, she decided she had to tell my biological father, since she wanted to raise me in our traditions. He… didn’t take it well.”
“Ouch. Doesn’t sound like a great guy. No offense.”
“None taken. He contributed half my chromosomes, but there was never any emotional connection. He made it clear that he didn’t have any interest in ‘goddamn freaks,’ even if one was his son. I didn’t care. I had my mom, and my uncle, and later my stepdad. They were enough. But I think… I think that was why my mom never told my uncle the truth about the Storm Society, even after my great-grandma passed. Once bitten, twice shy, as it were.”
“Pretty sure your mom could have told Buck that she sacrificed goats to Uncegila every full moon, and he’d just grunt and ask if she needed him to collect her ceremonial robes from the dry cleaner.”
Zephyr chuckled as he switched off his phone. “Me too. But fear isn’t rational. It’s hard to trust after that kind of trauma.”
“Yeah.” Blaise was silent for a moment, biting her bottom lip. “That’s kind of what I want to talk to you about. Zeph, you know my nightmares?”
“Not in detail,” he said, watching her fingers twist together. “I’ve never intruded into your dreams, Blaise. I wouldn’t do that without your permission.”
“Well, I’m asking now.” Blaise set her shoulders, lifting her chin. He could see how scared she was, and also how certain. “I need your help, Zephyr. I need to face my phoenix.”
Chapter 25
Smoke poured from the burning building, stretching for the sky in a thick, ominous plume. Even as Blaise jumped off the fire engine, she knew that this was it. The big one. The kind of incident that every firefighter feared; the type of fire that would either make you a hero, or haunt your nightmares for the rest of your life.
Like it had haunted hers. She’d dreamed this, over and over, and she was dreaming now…
Her hands felt numb, frozen. All around, firefighters were unloading equipment and preparing for attack with practiced efficiency. She knew she should be pulling on her own breathing mask, yet she couldn’t make herself move. With icy certainty, she knew that if she entered that building, she wouldn’t come out again.
Not as the same person.
A gloved hand gripped her shoulder. Not Callum, or any firefighter that she recognized. She couldn’t read the markings on his helmet, or make out his face past the protective visor. His name hovered on the tip of her tongue, just out of reach. Some part of her mind kicked in protest, insisting that he shouldn’t be here, hadn’t been here, and yet, and yet…
You won’t know me, he’d told her, though she couldn’t quite remember when or why. It will be different when we’re in your dream rather than mine. But I will be there. I will help you, if you let me.
“You can do this.” His voice was deep and soft. He wasn’t speaking over the radio link, yet somehow she could hear him clearly, through all the shouting and sirens. “This is what you trained to do, what you were born to do. You’re afraid, but you’ll step into those flames anyway. This is who you are.”
She knew that touch. She knew him, though she couldn’t have said how. He was her partner, and she wouldn’t let him down.
“Blaise,” the dispatcher said in her ear, distorted a little by radio crackle. “Alpha Team is on the way to support, estimated ETA seven minutes. Commander Ash wants to know if you’re holding position or proceeding to attack.”
“One moment, Control. Still assessing the situation.” She didn’t bother to switch radio frequencies, instead reaching out with her mind. *Callum?*
*Three people trapped upstairs,* he sent back, his telepathic tone tight and terse. His hands never paused, busy unshipping the ladder from the fire engine. *None of them are moving. Blaise, I can barely sense them. They’re very weak.*
“Right,” Blaise said out loud. “Control, tell Commander Ash we can’t wait for Alpha team. I’m going in.”
She fitted her breathing mask over her nose and mouth, then locked her helmet visor down. With radio commands and hand signals, she directed her squad to start suppressing the fire, beating back the flames enough to allow entry.
“Stay close,” she instructed—damn it, what was his name? No time to worry about that now. “Callum, point me.”
Glimmering points of light shimmered in her mind’s eye. Callum’s talent couldn’t map out walls and stairs—more’s the pity—but he could at least give her an indication of direction and distance.
Blaise kicked in the door, plunging into a world of intense heat and choking darkness. Though no flames were visible, she could sense the fire in the walls, gnawing greedily through insulation and wires. Dark wings beat in her mind, stretching wide in frustrated longing.
No. She froze, though to stop in these circumstances was death. Her vision constricted, awareness tunneling down in panic. No, no, no, not again, not this, I can’t—
That hand on her shoulder again. He was still with her, close as her own shadow, close as her black, burning soul.
“They need you,” he said. “You’re the only one who can save them.”
She swallowed hard, and nodded. Staying low, she dashed up the stairs, heading for those faint pinpricks of life.
The first two were together, a man and a woman, still curled together in a bed. They must have been overwhelmed by rising smoke without even awakening. No time to drag them downstairs. Callum and the rest of her crew had already wrestled the ladder into position. She smashed a window, handing the first victim out into their waiting hands. As she turned back to get the woman, a crashing roar shook the building, making her stagger.
Her radio crackled in her ear. “Blaise, the stairs just collapsed!”
“I know.” She passed the woman out the window. “Nobody enter the structure. Get everyone down, but keep the ladder braced here. There’s still one more person to find.”
*Blaise,* Callum said in her mind. She could just make him out through the dense smoke, a dark silhouette at the top of the ladder. *The whole upper floor could flashover at any moment.*
“It’s going to be all right, Cal.” For all the searing heat, she felt strangely cool, calm. Her shadow was a steady presence at her back. “I’m going to save him.”
She had saved them, the whole family, that night. The fire hadn’t claimed any lives. But she nearly had. If Alpha Team hadn’t stopped her…
Back into the burning darkness, into ever-increasing heat. Sweat dripped down her forehead, stinging her eyes. She couldn’t wipe it off through the protective visor. Not that it mattered. Sight was useless now, as was her tenuous link to Callum’s mind. Forward, was all he could tell her, along with a sense of a heartbeat stuttering to a halt.
Even through her gloves, the wall was hot enough to sear her palm. She kept her hand against it anyway, her only point of reference in the thick smoke. Distantly, she could hear sirens; the long, up-down wail of approaching engines. The backup crews, her father’s among them.
They would be too late. They had been too late, to stop what happened next.
Burn
She could feel the fire rising. Through the house; through her veins. Time narrowed, racing to that needle-sharp point of no return.
Burn
Flashover—the thing that every firefighter dreaded, that they trained so hard to recognize and avoid. That murderous moment when there was enough heat in the air that fuel ignited without a spark; where fire didn’t race from surface to surface, but simply bloomed, everywhere, in one glorious, cataclysmic burst.
Burn
She was so close to it. And this was the point where she always broke, turning to search futilely for a way out. A way to avoid this, to make it not happen, not have happened—
But this time, when she turned, she found him blocking the way. Somehow, she could see him clearly, even though everything else was hidden.
“This isn’t what happened.” Pale smoke curled around him like fog; like the clouds betwe
en dreams. “You would never abandon someone in danger. You didn’t turn back.”
“I should have!” She shoved at him in desperation. “I should have known better, I should have been more careful. I won’t let it happen again.”
He held firm, not giving ground. “If you keep running from the fire, it will burn unchecked. To fight it, you have to face it.”
Her breath came in shallow rasps. Even with her breathing apparatus, she could taste the smoke.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
Despite the choking smoke, he pulled off his helmet. Zephyr looked down at her, untouched by the searing heat, his dark eyes compassionate.
“I know,” he said gently. “That’s what makes you brave.”
Slowly, she reached up to her own helmet. Her hands were stiff and clumsy in the thick, fire-resistant gloves. It took her several attempts to undo the safety catches. With a hiss of escaping air, her helmet came free.
The heat caressed her exposed face like a lover. She took a deep breath, feeling warmth fill her lungs and spread out through her veins.
She turned around.
Burn!
Flashover. She felt it happen, just as it had happened before; the moment where the fire tried to erupt all around her, an apocalyptic explosion of flame. Just as she had done before, she reached out—not with her hands, but with her soul.
The part of her soul that had always been a frustrated, furious shadow. The part of her that had always yearned to burn.
Now, at last, it did.
She caught the fire before it could lash through the house. Impossible to contain or extinguish so much elemental force—but she could divert it. She took it, all that power and light and heat, and channeled it straight into her own heart.
The Black Phoenix rose.
It exploded into the sky with a scream of triumph and joy, shattering the roof like an egg. It took the fire with it, drawing it out of the house in a long, arcing tail. Black wings spread wide, every feather alight with blood-red flame.