第4章 The Flame That Bit Back

The match caught against the brick with a sound like a gasp—a small, dry scrape that should have produced nothing more than a flicker of ordinary flame and the brief, chemical smell of phosphorus meeting friction. But the match was not ordinary. The match had never been ordinary. And the flame that bloomed at its tip, a bright impossible gold against the frozen dark of the alley, was not the color of any fire that had ever burned in Thornbridge.

It was the gold of her grandmother’s locket. The gold of flowers grown from seeds planted in ground that touched a threshold between worlds. The gold of something that had not yet decided whether to be light or door or weapon, and Elin, with her back against the scorched brick and the hunger pressing in from both sides, chose weapon.

She thrust the flame toward Constable Harker’s face.

The light hit him like a physical blow. Not the light itself—the light was gentle, was warm, carried the ghost-scent of burnt cinnamon that was her grandmothe