A Rational Magic || ONC2022

Fourteen || Dark Fire Is A Thing, Apparently

"Katriel Wystan, what have you done?"

Cira's gasp is enough to get everyone's attention — and for a good reason.

Kat drops the flaming board without thinking about the fact that the floor happens to be made of wood, and Vaeri sends a jet of water from her hand before anything awful can happen. It's not the fire that Cira's paying attention to, though, since he's across the room in moments and grabbing the just-shorter boy's wrists.

"Are you crazy?"

"I can't feel it right," he says with a weak shrug. "It didn't hurt."

"Oh, these iron burns didn't hurt?"

"A bit."

"Iron...?" Anya gives the room at large a blank look, but I'm the one to answer.

"Iron burns fairies. Nails, I take it?"

"Mhm."

"Then... what, are you desensitised to pain in general?"

"No." Anya shook her head, eyes wide with understanding. "The drainpipe! It's probably, like, steel, right?"

"I imagine so," Kat muttered, wincing as Cira prodded at a spot on his palm. "It definitely wasn't cast iron, which, you know, I expected."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because what else could I do? Fly?"

"Right, right, right!" Holly snapped, jumping up onto the cabinet and almost whacking her head on one of the lowest ceiling beams. "Kat, don't. Lani, Anya, can you two please make an effort to ensure you both have the same information? Someone's clearly got more of a clue here, and it's showing. Cira, stop touching the burns. You're going to hurt him. Vaeri... Vaeri, I've got no reason to complain about you right now, so keep it that way."

"I don't get how that works," Vaeri sighed, leaning against the wall. "Steel's just iron with carbon, isn't it?"

"And that's the point. Iron with carbon. It's not pure. It's not gonna be the same level of pain that it causes," Anya explained. "So basically his sensory nerves haven't been so fried he can't feel anything in his hands, and he can still move them, but it hasn't left them unharmed like a PVC pipe would have done."

"Ciradyl!"

Kat wrenched himself free of the fire elf's grip, stumbling backwards and almost falling over. Cira didn't move, gazing at the bluish flames spreading up both his arms with a sort of dull fascination.

And... well, Kat's hands might have been on fire as well, but Vaeri had prioritised them if they were. We'd learnt Cira couldn't be burned, after all. Kat clearly could.

"That's not normal," Holly commented, as if we couldn't work it out for ourselves. "Cira. Cira? Ciradyl Nova!"

"Why are their names so complicated?" Anya huffed.

"Vaeri is simple enough," I pointed out. "So's Hollyann, actually. And Katriel. And Adalia. And Elandor. You're asking why Ciradyl is so complicated."

"It sounds like a medication."

"Well... he'd be good for hypothermia, right?"

"No...?"

I didn't bother arguing with her on it.

"What time do you think it is?" she asked after a moment. "It's so dark."

"Outside?"

"Yeah?"

"I... what do you mean?"

Because I could see the square perfectly. The 'fixer' who'd been working on the clock in the centre of it had set up some sort of magic lighting system, but it was definitely dark-ish outside.

Not, like, blinding, or anything, but not broad daylight.

Which was a curious thought to have, because we were underground. Wasn't it always gonna be dark down here?

"I mean I can't see anything outside! What do you mean, what do I mean?"

"So it's not just me," Kat mumbled.

"Oh, I thought I was seeing things too!" Holly said. "Guess something's going on out there, huh."

"So did I!" Vaeri clapped her hands together, looking far too pleased with the fact.

"I... you can't see anything?"

"You can?"

"Yeah. The person fixing the clock is still working, they've got some kind of magic lighting up..." I glanced back out the window, and felt my heart sink. "Wait, they're... gone..."

"No way." Vaeri shook her head. "You don't abandon jobs like that."

"That flame wasn't staying lit unless I burned my fingers in it."

"Okay. So maybe lanterns aren't working right. Then this 'magic lighting' should still work."

"It's not normal fire."

Cira was back with the rest of us, apparently — and no longer on fire.

"What... do you mean by 'not normal fire'?" Anya said quietly, the only one who could be bothered to raise the question.

"Do you get blue fire on Earth?" Holly asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Copper chloride." Anya grinned. "Or calcium chloride."

Given the blank looks everyone was giving her, it wasn't particularly common knowledge here.

"You know what? Sure. That makes sense." Cira didn't sound like he believed her, but he continued anyway. "It's dark magic. Flames created from magic like that won't work like fire is meant to."

"So it's not creating light unless you decide to be an idiot and stick your hand in it—"

"Hey!"

"—and it's cold, I take it?" Holly guessed, ignoring Kat's cry of indignation. "But then what's the point?"

"It... doesn't give off light?" Anya pointed out. "Like, to convince people nothing's wrong until it's impossible to reverse?"

"Exactly that, I should think," Cira frowned. "It's a plot of some kind."

"So why is it only taking effect now?"

Holly's question seemed to be stumping everyone else, but I thought I might know.

Whatever sort of scheme this was, it couldn't be an overnight kind of thing. It had to have been planned meticulously, and presumably by someone with powerful dark magic.

Who was to say that such a person wouldn't have access to, say, a prophet or prophetess? Someone who would know that Anya and I would end up here tonight, and thus would allow the people behind the plot be able to manufacture a cause for the darkness spreading like dark fire through the city — if I was right about why Kat had that board.

A scapegoat.

Us.