The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(40)

“The rest of you quietly move toward the door,” Kellan said. “We don’t want anyone to be hurt while you exit the building.”

The crowd did as he asked, giving the man on the floor a wide berth as they headed for the door. The barkeep tossed a pitcher of water over the man’s head, but the flames barely flickered in response. The man crumpled to the ground, moaning in pain. The flames clung to him, devouring greedily. The harsh smell of burning flesh filled the air, and he wailed.

The crowd murmured fearfully as they moved toward the door. A woman opened it, took a step outside, and then shrieked in horror. “It’s everywhere! The whole street!”

Blue and Kellan fought their way to a front window as the crowd surged back inside, buzzing with terror. All along the street, pools of glistening shadow flickered like flames beneath the golden light of the braziers. There were people scattered about the sidewalk, writhing in agony as the black fire ate into them. In the middle of the street, a carriage was tipped on its side, its owner sprawled motionless while the horse tangled in the carriage’s traces shrieked as flames ate at its legs.

“What is this?” Kellan asked, horror in his eyes.

“It’s a spell. Has to be. If I can get close enough to the flames, maybe I can figure out what’s happening.”

He shot her a startled look even as he shouted once again for calm. Leaning close, he said, “You can understand magic like this?”

She shrugged, pulling her hand from his so she could move toward the man on fire. “Depends. If this is a spell, then it has ingredients. I know how to work with that. If it’s something else . . .”

If this was something else, then Blue had no idea what to do. The iron bells that hung throughout the Evrard quarter weren’t ringing, so they weren’t dealing with a fae monster. She couldn’t speculate further without gathering more information.

“Be careful!” Kellan said as she neared the burning man, the prince on her heels. “Don’t take any risks. We don’t know if the flames can spread from one person to another.”

“I never thought I’d see the day when you’d be telling me not to take risks.” Blue circled the man, her stomach pitching at the way his eyes rolled back in his head while his body twitched in pain. There was a strong, sulfurlike smell and something sickly sweet—charing root, perhaps? It was highly flammable when combined with the right minerals. Several minerals would produce fire, but only threffalk could explain the inky darkness of the flames.

There was no counteringredient for burning charing root with threffalk. It simply had to extinguish itself over time.

“Blue?” Kellan kept his voice low and calm, though the horror was still in his eyes. He’d organized the crowd inside the pub and had them all in chairs, their gazes pinned to the man slowly dying at Blue’s feet. She hadn’t realized how easily leadership sat on his shoulders.

She took a step back, sorrow aching in her throat as the man began gasping for breath. “I can’t help him. I think it’s charing root and threffalk, probably with an accelerant or two involved. It’s going to have to burn itself out.”

It took several agonizing minutes for the man to die. And another twenty minutes after that for the flames to burn themselves out. The flames on the street finished burning around the same time, and Kellan immediately sent messengers to the quarter’s magistrate and to the castle. Once he was sure the street was safe, he allowed the pub’s customers to leave. As they scattered throughout the quarter, clinging to each other in shock, Kellan turned to Blue.

“Do you know who could have done this?”

“How could I possibly know that?” She glared at him as if he was responsible for the churning sickness that lingered within her as she took in the bodies strewn about the street.

“Because you’re an alchemist.” He gestured at the street. “This was alchemy.”

“This was magic.” She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, though the air was still pleasantly warm. “Charing root and threffalk, combined with an accelerant, create the kind of fire that spreads to anything it touches. This fire stayed contained to living things. The pub is still standing. That carriage is untouched. The rest of the street is undamaged, and all of it should be destroyed.”

“So maybe you’re wrong about the ingredients that created the fire.”

Blue shook her head. “I know what I smelled. But regardless of the ingredients used to create the fire, fire spreads. Magic is the only thing that makes sense.”

Kellan pressed his fingers against his eyelids as if trying to stave off a burgeoning headache. “This is going to cause a widespread panic.”

If Falaise de la Mer had someone practicing dangerous magic in its streets, then as far as Blue was concerned, the panic was warranted. She kept her thoughts to herself, however, and simply squeezed Kellan’s arm in support.

She wouldn’t take all the gold in the kingdom to be in his shoes right now. Everyone would be looking to him and to the queen for answers. For justice. For successfully capturing and hanging the perpetrator. And no one even knew where to start looking.

“I have to stay here,” Kellan said. “My mother will be coming, I’m sure, along with the royal magistrate and plenty of guards. We’ll have to canvass the street, question witnesses, if any of them are still alive.” He swallowed. “And then we’ll have to notify the families of those who . . . of the deceased.”