It was snowing again. School was canceled. I didn’t particularly want to go out in it, and neither did Kanesha. We were in my bedroom playing cards when I felt a disturbance that rushed across the city. I looked up.

I was a little alarmed to see that she looked up at the same time. “Did you feel that?”

Tensely, she nodded.

“Get your stuff. We’re going to have to go out in the snow after all.” I reached under the bed for my sword.

Sword. Gun. Heavy jacket. Boots. I hoped I wouldn’t need the first two, but a sense of urgency was flowing through me.

It felt as if somebody had opened a door to hell, the afterlife, or some place even worse than either. The sword was over my back and we were running downstairs.

Past Mike. “What’s going on?”

“Not sure, but I think somebody just opened a portal to hell.”

He grabbed his badge off the table…it might, I supposed…be useful, and ran after us.

“Can you tell where?”

“Fairly close. North.” Thankfully, it wasn’t under the Capitol or anything like that. They probably were hiding from the snow too. I set off up the street. Mike was talking on his cell phone.

I hoped he was calling Thruor and her sisters. I had a feeling they might come in handy, but I also couldn’t count on them showing up before the fight was over.

Then I could see something of what was going on with my mundane eyes. A townhouse was burning, the fire threatening to spread to the rest of the row. In front of it were a bunch of people gathered.

“I think they called a fire giant.”

“Or an elemental,” Mike said, slowing to a walk. “Fire giants don’t necessarily…”

I shook my head. “I think it’s a fire giant. I felt it pretty clearly…” Which meant it was linked to me. But how had Kanesha sensed it? She didn’t have any powers.

Unless some of my magic was rubbing off on her. It might work that way. That one is yours, I thought. Maybe I’d accidentally given her some sensory ability.

If so, I was kind of glad. It might help her stay alive.

And then I realized who the people around the burning townhouse were.

The Silver Thorn. And Clara was with them.