Panting, he noticed Zoe’s body, limp in my arms. “What happened to her?”

“It burned.”

“What do you mean, it burned?”

“Exactly what I said. It … burned.”

“No, but I asked about Zoe, and you said—”

“I know what I said.”

“But what you said makes no sense! What do you mean? What happened to Zoe?”

“She’ll be fine. She might feel dizzy afterwards. Make sure she gets plenty to drink. Try to cool her down, though I’d avoid iced drinks for a while.”

He stared at me like I had just explained to him the entirety of Chapter 20 of his Linear Algebra textbook. “Okay, but what happened to her?”

I sighed. “Her soul burned.”

“What?”

“She … she’s a … I don’t know. I guess in your terms, you could say she’s a ‘Dragon’ or something of the sort? Child of the flame. I don’t know much about her kind. I thought they were just a legend. Though, I suppose they might consider my kind a legend as well. Anyway, she’s just a fledgling. Barely aware of what she is, if at all. Certainly couldn’t control it. It got out of hand, and it knocked her unconscious. Like I said, she’ll be fine. Just let her rest.”

Kellan nodded and scooped Zoe out of my arms. Where I had princess-carried her, he just slung her over his shoulder like a sack. I suppose he thought I had said all that I could. I suppose, in a way, I did. But not because I was forbidden from saying any more. I didn’t know how. Or maybe I just couldn’t bring myself to say it. Because the force that had knocked Zoe out had also touched me, and now, I was left with a feeling I barely recognized, one I hadn’t felt for ages, perhaps millennia, certainly a great many lifetimes ago. Because while her soul burned, it unfroze a bit of my own soul, a soul that had frozen so long ago that it had forgotten what it felt like to melt, to be free.