Nickolai had planned to hit the water and sink like a stone, then die. But when he hit the surface, the force of it shocked his eyes and mouth open, and the water rushed into him as he splayed out his limbs. He sank a little and didn't struggle. The river slung him onto its back and carried him quietly downstream, suspended mid-current like a marionette.

His brain painted bright spots around the edges of his vision--he had never been able to hold his breath for very long. His arms seemed weak as threads, too weak to carry his soggy body up for air. Nickolai thought that the water around him was so chilly and dark that it might put him to sleep before he drowned.

It yawned and stretched like a lion, and rolled over in a glutted stupor. It had fed all evening, and was planning to digest a while before spending the night stalking and souring good dreams.

It sunned itself on the pulse of inner fires that were sprinkled through the apartment buildings, the cars, and the metro. There were two suns in its world--two firestorms that it kept watch on--because it was curious, and jealous. One firestorm was caged and quiet; that was to be expected. The other...

It bristled with a snarl like a startled cat. Then with a shiver of sinew, it twisted its darkness into the night's darkness and sped forward on wings as stark and spiny as prison bars.

Nickolai was readying himself to die. He had been in the water several minutes and was already feeling the river nibbling at him, sucking at his finger-bones, and his lungs, and his eyes. The voices of Alexander and the others were silent in his head: hopeless, dazed.

But then hot warmth surrounded him, and there was a voice fizzling into the water. His murky brain tried to grasp at the words.

It came again, insistent. Swim, Nickolai.

Nickolai would not swim.

The heat thrashed at the water without displacing it and wrapped itself around Nickolai's neck. Then it sauntered upward through the chilly current, dragging Nickolai behind it like a toy duck on a string. It wrenched him onto the bank and coiled itself around him like a snake, warming him and forcing him to breathe.

I tasted the suicide on you from across the city, it ventured, needling him. It uncoiled its body from around him and crouched on the black grass. Nickolai said nothing. He stripped off his grey leather trench coat, which was now a ruined mess of wet leather, and stared at it regretfully. He and the thing beside him looked back to the bridge at the same time, where there was a woman staring at them. The thing swatted lazily at her, and the heat of fear blazed through the poor woman, flattening her against the cracked cement of the walkway. She clung to the bars and appeared to be crying.

"I thought you wanted to watch me die," Nickolai said dully.

It lost interest in the woman. 'And in those days,' it said, 'men shall seek death, and they will not find it. They will long for death, but death will flee from them.'

"How dare you quote that book at me!" exploded Nickolai.

It sniggered at him. Then it pinned him against the frozen mud by the neck. Cocky Nickolai was suddenly wracked with involuntary chills and violent fright. Flesh of my flesh, it said in a voice as warm as saliva, don't think I saved you because I love you. Nickolai's breath waned to a faint whisper-in, whisper-out.

Look. It pointed spitefully at the woman on the bridge. Look at these souls. While I was gone, my prey has gone sluggish and thick. These people have never learnt to fear. They are not brave. They are small and sugary. It licked its lips hungrily and dug its claws into the riverbank, straightening its wings outward. It was huge. I came for blood and fire, not for honey, it said. Before long, I will be bored with their taste. These souls will never satisfy me because they don't know me. Their fear is a half-fear. Do you understand, Nickolai?

It pressed its skull against his skull, and stared him in the face. Nickolai was betrayed by his human body and froze with panic. He couldn't nod.

You are being ripened. You and your brother. I am far too angry to have the patience to teach this world to properly fear me again--I'd get fat and lazy like them long before that, and that would disgrace me. Instead, you, Nickolai, will face your fate. It grinned, because it knew. And when your fate brings you back to me, fully grown with a sword in your hand, I will wage war against you and kill you. And after Iive sated my hunger on you and your twin, I will burn this world.

Nickolai wasn't used to trembling, but he couldn't help it. He opened his mouth, perhaps to say something, or perhaps to cry out, but his companion was far faster and far stronger, and it smashed him against the riverbank. Nickolai's teeth cracked together, and a little blood pooled at the back of his scalp. Breath shuddered in and out of him. He was cold and wanted to cry. The thing was already gone.

Calina had seen the man fall from the bridge. His beautiful furnace had been instantly hidden by the depth of the river and swept under the bridge, but after straining her eyes at the darkness until she thought he was certainly dead, she saw a bright candle flaming under the water, speeding upstream. He was tossed onto the bank. Calina had stepped back from the heat radiating out from him, even at that distance. It was like the wind from the cathedral. She looked closer. The heat was not the man. Something else was there beside him, something much larger and stronger. There was a faint outline of it: a blurred darkness that squatted beside him. The darkness reached out for her...

She was screaming. Something was hitting her. There was a horrible moment where she hovered between consciousness and unconsciousness, where she thought she'd never wake up, and then her mind plunged away from its dreams. Her hands were frozen around the bars of the bridge's walkway. Something was still hitting her. She pried her fingers open and swung her fist blindly.

The man jumped back. She paused to let her mind clear, then:

"You! You were hitting me!" she spluttered.

"You wouldn't stop screaming," he said. He saw the letter lying by her knees, and lunged for it. She tried to protect it, but he pushed her out of the way and threw it into the river.

She huddled against the bars, hugging her knees. "But I'll have bruises--my seizures--"

"I waited, but I didn't know if you'd wake up," he said. "I didn't hit you very hard."

Calina shrank into herself and felt her mind wobbling like it did before a particularly bad seizure. She was sure that her brain couldn't handle stress like this for long. She was sorry she had followed the man and his fire. She was sorry that she hadn't just gone back home to Ben and Gran. Surely she'd done her penance by now.

"My name is Nickolai," said the man.

Calina could feel a welt rising on the skin above her eyebrow. There were dark, finger-shaped marks printed on her arms. She watched the man from her seat on the chilly concrete. He was wet and shivering. His button-down shirt and jeans were soaked and woefully unfit for November. He had a very intense stare, and he kept his fists clenched at his sides. She decided not to answer him.

He waited for a moment. When she didn't say anything back, he turned around and started to walk away.

"Wait!"

He waited. Calina hadn't thought of anything to say yet. "I'm Calina," she said. "Tell me why I can see fire inside people. Do you know? And--and why do you have such a big fire inside you?"

With a grave face and no trace of sarcasm, Nickolai said, "You have demon blood in you, don't you? How else could you see them?"

Calina regretted saying anything at all.

"My fire is the shape and size of my soul," he continued. "You read my letter. It wasn't my fault." He stopped. Clutching his arms around himself, he made himself look much smaller and frailer than he was. "I'm sorry for hitting you." The inferno beat against the cage of his skin, completely contained.

Calina pulled out her cell phone. She had to be hallucinating. She wasn't well. Doctor Ricks was hopeless and no help to her--she would call Ben instead. Ben would know what to do. She fumbled with the jelly case and started to push the sequence of buttons. Abruptly, Nickolai flicked the phone out of her hand with his foot. Before she could object, he grabbed her wrist. "You can see people's fires--I need you to come with me and help me. My brother is--"

"No." Calina stood her ground. "You just tried to kill yourself. You can't have anything important to do right now. So instead, we...