He could already smell the brimstone.
Wait. That wasn’t in his head. That was real.
“Fire!”
Panic erupted. Screams rent the air, the drumbeat of a hundred feet stampeding for the doors shaking the floor. Thornecliff eeled out from under him and Nathaniel let him go with a snarl before launching himself up to scan the room.
Black smoke hazed the low ceiling, acrid and heavy.
Ducking, Nathaniel ran for the bar where he found a rag and soaked it in water before tying it around his nose and mouth. All around him, people were frantic, running and tripping and shoving one another as they attempted to escape before the entire timber-walled tavern went up in flames.
Squinting through the chaos, Nathaniel saw Leda kneeling next to a lady who was sobbing, holding her ankle, and he made his way to them.
“Get out,” he told Leda, bending to hoist the crying woman into his arms and carrying her from the tavern into the lane.
Choked with agitated people milling about, the street was still a relief after the thick, hot air of The Nemesis. Nathaniel gulped in deep breaths, hands on his knees, and only barely managed to lunge up to catch Leda on her way back inside.
“It’s my place,” Leda coughed, tugging at her arm, her face ravaged. Soot from the smoke smudged her cheeks; her eyes were red-rimmed behind the mask. “I have to?—”
“You have to stay out here,” Nathaniel told her firmly. “Organize the bucket brigade. I’ll go back in and make sure everyone is out.”
Looking over her head, he spotted Rufus through the crowd and beckoned him over. He left the two of them clutching at each other, gasping with relief at being in each other’s arms, and pulled his wet rag up over his nose once more.
Just before he shoved back into the tavern, he locked eyes briefly with Thornecliff off to the side. Streaked with black smudges over his face and chest, he was crouched in the street next to a man who was doubled over, coughing.
So he’d made it out, then. Figured.
Nathaniel took a last deep breath and went back in. Inside The Nemesis was a hellscape. Flames licked up the back wall, smoke roiling and billowing. A loud, shattering crash had Nathaniel ducking and cursing; the heat had exploded some of the liquor bottles behind the bar.
He scanned the room for movement, lungs burning and stinging with every inhalation.
There, by the ring, a pair of boots attached to a man in heavy canvas trousers and a dockworker’s coat, passed out on the floor. Nathaniel heaved him over one shoulder and got him outside, passing him off to someone before turning back and heading inside once more.
Time warped and stretched, impossible to track. There was nothing but the dense, prickling heat of the air scouring his throat and lungs, the sear of livid ashes on his skin, the exhaustion in his muscles.
Twice, three times more, Nathaniel found an unconscious body and delivered it to the people waiting to help in the lane.
He blundered back into the building, shrugging off the hands that tried to hold onto him.
Someone had to go back in. Might as well be him.
The crackle of the fire, the creak of the weakening timbers filled his ears. The very air was red.
No one could survive in this, he realized dimly. Anyone still inside the Nemesis was already dead. Turning, he reached for the door, but his smoke-stung eyes hurt too much to open all the way. He fumbled, pitching back and forth like a drunk, lost.
He couldn’t get out. He didn’t even know where out was.
Nathaniel’s lungs seized. He doubled over, hacking and wheezing, inhaling nothing but smoke and ash. He crashed to his knees, unable to catch a breath.
So this was how it ended.
Nathaniel crumpled to the floor, vision wavering darkly. He shut his eyes and fixed an image of Bess in his mind—her honey-blond hair and whiskey eyes, shining with warmth and welcome, her strong, capable hands held out to him.
If these were his last moments, let him think of nothing but her.
Bess. I love you. I’m sorry.
We should’ve had more time.
