“Miss Kei!”

  Kenneth’s scream reverberated harshly from the church walls in every direction, jolting Lucy back to her senses as she couldn’t believe what had just happened before her eyes.

  One moment, Keilani had been standing in front of the eye of God, her figure stiffly upright with her lips sealed in silence—the next, a plume of flame had engulfed her body completely, replacing it with raging vermilion and blinding white, roaring with an intensity that shattered the church hall’s hallowed silence.

  Lucy was overcome with the urge to bawl out a scream of her own, but all action had left her body, reducing her to a mere wide-eyed observer who could only gawk—even as Kenneth ran up mere inches from the flame.

  “Stay back!”

  The voice—Keilani’s voice—came from the raging fire. This startled Kenneth far more than the fire itself as he retracted his outstretched hand.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Really.”

  Keilani’s words were laced with excessive calm and even a slight lilt of relief. This was completely at odds with the continued roaring and crackling of the great flame, and this deeply unsettling contrast wormed its way through Lucy’s mind to such a degree that it freed her own voice from its stupor.

  “How…how can you say that?” Lucy, letting out all the emotions that had been stymied by her shock and inaction until now, stomped one boot toward Keilani’s fire and shouted: “You’re burning alive!”

  Without skipping a beat, Keilani added, devoid of any urgency: “Yes, I am, but it’s a good thing.”

  “What—”

  “This is what I needed,” Keilani said, cutting Lucy off as the flame grew larger and burned with righteous vigour. “It’s what I’ve been looking for. For so, so long.”

  The flame continued to crackle and hiss without ever waning. Lucy stared at it, then grit her teeth as the white-hot core was too much for her eyes to handle and forced her gaze off to the side, toward a sliver of the altar and its surrounding area visible between the body of fire and the eye that had conjured it.

  Gazing distantly, just like Keilani had done earlier…

  Lucy remembered a black and white photo from her history classes on World War One, depicting a soldier hunched over in a trench. His smile was big and bright, seemingly in response to his fellow soldiers patting him on the back, but his eyes… Even with the photo’s smudged and dirty quality, it was clear his eyes were trained on a point far beyond the present, to a moment he kept revisiting over and over again across vast swathes of time and space.

  The thousand-yard stare.

  The same stare Lucy had seen on Keilani’s face twice.

  Brass sanctus bells chimed as everything clicked into place in Lucy’s mind. The pain and hesitation Keilani had shown when leaving Ricardo and Diana behind; all those names she’d listed that had to have been hanging in her mind constantly, as if she could still see their namesakes albeit so far away; and the overwhelming guilt which, if not directed outwardly, had to be redirected inward, building and festering like piles of dry driftwood just asking to go up in flames.

  And Lucy had watched as the eye of God ignited that long-awaited spark.

  Heaviness plunged into Lucy’s chest, her breathing coming in harsh and rapid gasps. This was bad: she was inhaling huge amounts of smoke that came from the fire, making her cough and breathe even more raggedly. But she couldn’t stop staring at the fire that burned without end because of everything she hadn’t done.

  Pain shot through her left arm. Kenneth was holding her left wrist, unaware that she was injured there, and looked up at her face with curious and pleading eyes.

  Lucy bit her lip, fighting back tears. She was still standing dumbly in front of Keilani roasting alive, even with Kenneth watching. Using this loathsome frustration to ignite her own dead driftwood of a body, Lucy yelled:

  “Keilani—”

  She was cut off by a sharp, droning, rich tone that echoed out over the entire church. The tone sustained for what felt like an eternity, then moved up and down in pitch, forming a pleasantly harmonic melody.

  Musical notes. From a pipe organ.

  Lucy glanced again toward the altar, and her blood froze as she took in the pipe organ and its keyboard. No one was there, yet the keys pressed down and rose up all on their own.

  The melody they played was piercing and overwhelming in its fullness, like all pipe organ songs Lucy remembered from her childhood Sundays. And yet, despite the roaring fire here at the very heart of the church, the melody rose and fell with gaiety and unfettered levity, the cadences overflowing with satisfying resolution as bright notes sustained and gently faded. It was music for rejoicing, for decreeing a smile on every face.

  “Thank you, Father.”

  Keilani’s voice glided over the organ music, harmonizing with the notes, intertwining with the exaltation of gracious joy.

  “Thank you for not abandoning me as I have done others. Thank you for granting me salvation in my lightless life. I am forever in your debt.”

  The flame roared like a dragon, but in its fluctuating tongues, Lucy saw a flicker of Keilani’s face. Her skin was ashen, the dark browns and greys offset only by the still-white gleam of her teeth.

  The teeth she bared in a euphoric grin.

  Lucy’s spine turned to ice—a painfully contradictory sensation amidst the smouldering heat—but she had no time to collect herself before Kenneth tugged at her arm.

  “Miss Lucy, Miss Lucy,” he cried out, “What do we do? How do we stop Miss Kei from…from…”

  “I…”

  Lucy was at a complete loss for words. She should be thankful that Kenneth was still relatively calm about the situation, but she knew this was born from that naive, childish hope that this situation could be stopped in time before anything permanently bad happened. If this continued—if Lucy allowed this to continue—Kenneth wouldn’t be so calm after seeing the end result.

  Shaking her head free of that thought, Lucy took several quick and deep breaths and stared at the raging fire before them, observing it as if it were merely a boulder in their path or any other sort of obstacle to be overcome.

  Fire…fire…Lucy cursed herself, wishing she had a Feat for conjuring water, or a Feat for making herself or other people fire-proof. Was there water nearby they could use? A rapid glance around the church hall showed no such thing, but if there were a nearby fountain or spring, like larger churches sometimes had, and a bucket lying around—no, that wouldn’t work. This flame, no, this enormous conflagration was already too large and burning too intensely to be put out by mere bucketfuls of water.

  “Miss Lucy?”

  Kenneth tugged on her left arm again. The pain from the injury that had rendered her more limited than usual, as well as the fire’s blinding light that stung her eyes and the heat and smoke that burned through her throat and nostrils—all of it suffocated Lucy, caving her consciousness in until it narrowed to a single, desperate, commanding plea:

  Do something.

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  The fire’s wavering tendrils of flame flickered once more, and through the spaces between them, one of Keilani’s arms was visible and still looked largely intact. Then it was gone, and there was doubt, the possibility that it had been a trick of the light or Lucy’s own delusion.

  But that didn’t matter. Lucy reached her right arm out, her gloved hand diving through the air toward the flame that was sure to burn right through the glove and her skin.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  The rumble and thud of heavy doors swinging open accompanied this shout from another voice.

  Diana’s voice.

  She barged in from the entrance at the back of the church hall, her rapid panting indicative of how long she had been running. Her cape and toga were torn in places, but otherwise she appeared fine, her thunderous steps echoing with vigour through the church. Ricardo jogged in behind her, stopping a few paces after the doors to grab his knees and catch his breath. His skin was no longer that metallic silver colour Lucy had seen earlier, and the many tears in his gi showed fresh wounds that bled and reddened the white fabric.

  Lucy drew her hand back, watching the other two Dream Knights approach first with surprise, then with shame, especially as Diana drew closer with her glowering expression. The harsh orange lighting from the flame fell on Diana’s tall figure with a stark contrast that made her look statuesque, like a deity for which this sacred hall was built.

  She stopped not more than four feet from where Lucy was standing—well within reach of her spear—and panted, catching her breath, her gaze never leaving Lucy’s.

  Once she had composed herself, Diana looked about, then pierced Lucy’s gaze again and asked: “Where’s Keilani?”

  “She…she…”

  “Out with it, damn you!” The veins in Diana’s neck bulged. “Where. Is. She?”

  “Simmer down a bit, will ya?” Ricardo had finally caught up, his wounds even more apparent before the flame’s uncompromising light, yet he wore calm like an old trusty hat on his face. “You can see they have their hands full with some stuff here. Like this giant eye thing. Or that huge fire.”

  “That fire…” Kenneth spoke up, immediately drawing all eyes to himself. There was a pause, then he said all too quickly: “Miss Kei is in there.”

  “What?”

  Diana’s disbelief came out low but sharp, and the heat engulfing the air intensified. She pushed Lucy aside and ran right up in front of Keilani—or what remained of her.

  “Keilani! Listen to me! If you can get out of there, you better do it right now!”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Keilani’s voice still held that unnatural calmness. Then, she spoke in phrases with even pacing and metre, with measured silences in between to let the pipe organ’s music swell.

  “This is Father’s blessing.

  “This is what I needed.

  “I’m happy.

  “So, so happy.”

  For the first time, Lucy saw Diana’s hard-set expression crumble, her eyes wide with disbelief and her mouth hanging open in the gradual but rapid dawning of horror. It was only for a moment, as Diana forced a quick, deep breath and held her open palm out.

  “Hold on!” Diana called out to the flame. “I’m gonna counter this with ice. You might not be able to move for a while, but…”

  Diana’s voice quickly trailed off, then she pounded the butt of her spear into the floor with enough force to sound like thunder. “Shit! I already used it up freezing those guards!”

  “Hey, don’t blame yourself,” Ricardo said. “They were getting pretty far up the hill, so if you hadn’t stopped ‘em—”

  “I know!” Diana yelled at him. “But if I didn’t do that, if we hadn’t chickened out and just forced them back instead, we’d be able to save Keilani now.”

  Lucy looked at Diana’s face and felt a pang of sympathy. Her voice still had its wrathful edge, but now there was desperation and panic laced into it as well. For as abrasive as Diana’s personality was, she did appear to value the lives of her comrades highly, and in that Lucy searched her eyes for common understanding.

  Diana noticed Lucy’s gaze—and glared at her. “How did this happen to her?”

  Lucy’s mouth hung open as she was stuck between as she was stuck between formulating an answer and mentally processing the accusatory tone in Diana’s voice. She flicked her gaze to Ricardo, who nodded slowly with a solemn frown. Come clean and tell the truth, he urged her. Her gaze dropped to Kenneth at her side, looking on with curious but expectant eyes.

  Lucy lightly bit her lip. Ricardo was probably right that if Diana caught even the slightest whiff of a lie, she would ignite a fire of her own. And if Lucy wasn’t going to inform them of what happened, Kenneth was more than ready to do so, given that he had told them about Keilani’s predicament to begin with.

  Diana sighed with an exasperated heat that nearly overshadowed the fire’s relentless convection. “Flat-out ignoring me, are you? The time for watching is over. Out with it already.”

  “She…went up to that giant eyeball.” Lucy held her voice as steadily as she could, even with Diana’s piercing gaze making it hard for her to even blink. “She confessed that she felt guilty about abandoning you two. It reminded her of something from the military.”

  Diana’s gaze did not falter or move, and in this stillness was an unstoppable command: Keep talking. Ricardo, meanwhile, took on a distant, pondering expression; no doubt, he was piecing together what had tormented Keilani for so long.

  “So then,” Lucy continued, “the eyeball—which Kenneth calls the eye of God—set her on fire. To burn away her sins.”

  Kenneth gave a light sound of agreement. Other than that, a silence fell over the church, the fire’s roaring becoming a mere crackle as tension filled the smouldering air. Ricardo looked to Lucy, then the fire, his eyes misty with worry and sympathy.

  But Diana had not budged, neither in body nor in expression. She went on glaring right into Lucy’s eyes, as if waiting for Lucy to say something more—something which Lucy couldn’t possibly conceive, as she had already explained everything.

  This wordless tension continued indefinitely, until a thud rung out through the church hall from Diana slamming the butt of her spear into the floor.

  “And you,” she said, baring her teeth as she spoke, “you just stood there and let this happen?”

  “I…” Lucy’s voice trailed as she took an involuntary breath. She should have known that question was coming—she knew subconsciously that Diana’s spear of a tongue would venture there—but she had wanted to believe it wouldn’t come to this. Now, all she could do was fall back on what little honest truths she could say that wouldn’t dig her own grave. “I didn’t know that this—this—fire would happen when she went up to it. And Kenneth said—”

  “What an excellent excuse!” Diana interjected, her lips curving into a mocking smile. “You didn’t know what would happen if she went up to some horrible monstrosity that clearly looks dangerous. And then she starts spouting some words that make her defenceless and vulnerable. Yeah, nothing bad could come from that, obviously.”

  “Diana…”

  “Yes, dear? What are you calling my name for? Are you going to heart-to-heart me into calming down and taking your side?” Her spiteful smirk vanished as she lowered her head, looking up over her brow to deliver a piercing glare. “Like that pointless ‘discussion’ you had with those bakers?”

  Lucy had a quick intake of breath, which didn’t help her case as it reduced her to a coughing fit. As she bent down with her hands on her knees, hacking away from her throat, Diana continued to lord her figure over the younger woman.

  “Well?” said Diana. “How’d that work out for you, back there?”

  Lucy coughed some more, but as soon as it stopped, she looked up at Diana, hands still on her knees, casting a glare of her own. “You didn’t have to kill them.”

  “Tch.” Diana pounded her spear into the floor again. “This is what I hate about you Standies.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Lucy didn’t hesitate to shoot that question, not minding whether it sounded overly raw, overly harsh. It had been festering at the back of her mind for so long, and she felt she had to know now or it would erupt.

  “What I hate,” said Diana, her voice hitting the ‘t’ in hate with raging force, “is how you stand back and hope things will work out. Say a few pretty words, show a little smile, then sit back and let the pieces in their minds conveniently fall into place, all on their own, so that these saps are all hunky-dory and inviting you over for tea and biscuits.”

  Lucy grimaced, feeling the heat of rage coiling through her chest as she listened to Diana mock her so openly, mock her for seeking alternate solutions that didn’t necessitate needless bloodshed.

  “Those bakers weren’t going to budge,” Diana said curtly and matter-of-factly. “You knew it, the moment they yelled back at you. And yet you did it again with this ‘eye of God’ that clearly isn’t friendly.”

  She paused, then took four stomping steps forward so that she was right up to Lucy’s face.

  “Quit taking the easy way out, little girl.” Diana’s breath ran hot down Lucy’s neck. “You’re not in a damned fairy tale.”

  Lucy gazed into her eyes, taking in the bloodshot anger that made them practically glow with hostility. Earlier, those same eyes had always halted her, arrested her with intimidation and feelings of inferiority—but now, they made her right arm throb with energy as she pushed Diana back.

  “You’re only saying this because you don’t try doing things any other way,” said Lucy. “No one’s going to co-operate with an attitude like yours. No one’s going to be patient if you’re already going in to attack.”

  Lucy paused, taking in Diana’s hard-set expression giving away the slightest hints of surprise and disbelief. Then, after inhaling the burning air and feeling it course through her veins, she yelled: “Would it kill you to stop treating everyone as an enemy?”

  “What did you—”

  “Hey, now.” Ricardo slid in between the two, spreading his arm out to block Diana. “It’s good you two finally got this off your chests, but we need to focus on saving Keilani. Preferably, before she’s just ashes.”

  “Hmph.” Diana glared at Lucy, then Ricardo, then the eye. “I’ve got an easy solution for that.”

  Without hesitation, she raised her spear, its crimson aura running down the entire length, and aimed at the eye of God. She aligned the tip perfectly with the pupil’s centre, wordlessly declaring that to be the bull’s eye as this was little more than target practice for her.

  The eye had only a fleeting moment to regard the weapon pointed at it before Diana thrust forward with an explosive yet effortless movement.

  A sharp clang rung out, followed by the high-pitched scraping of metal on metal.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Diana spat, glaring at the knight parrying her spear with a sword she could barely hold in both hands.

  Lucy winced at the pain from her left arm, but she refused to let go of her Ideal as she held fast against Diana’s spear. The fire cast her grimacing face in an ethereal glow as she spoke.

  “I’m getting you to listen for once.”