Probably.
“Time for a bonfire.” I keep my voice light, but I’m not sure if Ophelia hears me.
She seems far away as she scrambles for the door handle and stumbles out of the car.
I meet her in front of the hood and gesture toward the lake. “This way.”
Just when I’m sure she’s going to race past me, the firebird sidles close, slipping her hand into mine. Her skin is fever hot. I hold tight and draw her forward.
On the rocky lakeshore, Jack is just finishing setting a tree on top of two others. Decent-sized trunks—each could have provided a year’s worth of firewood. Something tells me they won’t last the night.
Jack backs up on his lupine legs and uses a clawed hand to point at the pile. “Yours,” he growls through a gaping maw full of fangs. Then, he lopes off, back toward the house.
“Thank you!” I call after him, determined to show gratitude whether he acknowledges it or not.
“Stand back,” Ophelia commands, her voice strong now.
She detaches her hand from mine and uses it to push my chest. Then, in moves so quick that I almost miss them, she toes off her sandals and tugs her dress overhead. In only her panties, the firebird strides toward the kindling, flames sparking from her skin, feet scorching the grass with each step. The moment Ophelia stands among the wood, she emits a shriek that reminds me of a hunting hawk. And just like the night we freed her, the gorgeous shape of a majestic bird overtakes her.
But this time, she doesn’t fly away.
Ophelia simply burns, the logs around her catching to build a huge bonfire on the shores of Lake Galen. Even at my distance, the heat spills off in waves, stealing the moisture from my face until my skin feels tight. But I don’t retreat.
In the rising temperature, I can sense her pain. The orange of anxiety is masked by the fire, but I feel the emotion through mymagic. The fear and hurt she tries to hide under soft words and ducked eyes.
Behaviors I’m beginning to believe were taught to her by that hellish father she told me about.
My parents were terrible, but at least they left us to our own devices for the most part.
Ophelia lived under the constant oppression of a man who told her this wondrous part of her was wrong. Then, he—her own flesh and blood—traded her to a monster who caged her even further.
We’re lucky she hasn’t set this whole town on fire with how much furious despair is pent up inside her.
I settle in the now-dry grass, ready to wait as long as Ophelia needs. There’s a small log a few feet from me, and without warning, a large barn owl glides down to settle on the makeshift perch.
No, notanowl.Theowl. The one that keeps appearing, as if following me around town. The one that feels oddly familiar.
Tearing my eyes from Ophelia’s pyrotechnics, I take a moment to study the bird. For now, it stares straight ahead, keeping vigil over the firebird.
Is the owl here for me or for her?
Either way, I find I appreciate the company as I turn back to watch Ophelia burn. Her fire mesmerizes me, lulling me into an almost-drowsy state. Which might be why I blink and feel like I’ve only woken up when all there is before me is a cluster of charred wood. And a naked woman.
She crosses her arms over her chest self-consciously. I scoop up her dress and keep my eyes on my toes as I jog up to her, the sound of flapping wings at my back alerting me to the fact that the owl has taken to the air at my departure. The silky material slips over the skin of my fingers like a tease as she accepts it.
“I’m covered,” she says.
When I glance up, Ophelia stares back at me, an expression of uncertainty on her face.
“Will I get in trouble?” she asks.
“For what?”
She tilts her chin toward the smoldering embers. “For letting my fire out.”
“No. Of course not. Is that what Georgiana told you?”
She shrugs. “Not in those exact words. But yes.”
