As the night progressed, the roar of the purple fmes drowned out the warning bells and screams from the town’s center. The ash fought the snow for territory as it bnketed the ground with the charred remnants of building after building. The bakery colpsed in on itself, as did its neighbors, leaving a giant gap to watch the rest of the town burn. One in three structures would not survive the night, and of those that remained, very few avoided any damage whatsoever from the Py’riel attack.

  Nobody came down our street for some time, as the fighting against the Py’riel remained deeper in the heart of Quinn’s Peak. With nearly everyone in one pce per the mayor’s request, the Py’riel swept along the outskirts of town before advancing toward the center, boxing in everyone at the town hall. The monsters stole the lives of so many of our neighbors that night.

  And for what? What did these creatures gain from their senseless attack? The Berin Mountains had plenty of room for the town and the Py’riel to coexist, but they chose to attack these innocent people purely out of malice. They tore apart families and tainted the dreams of the people of Quinn’s Peak who hoped for a quiet, peaceful life. They had no excuse, and if I ever had the chance, I vowed to ensure the Py’riel would get what they deserved in return.

  Janine tensed as a Py’riel emerged from the thick smoke that clogged the streets, but it hadn’t returned to finish its attack—it was fleeing. Staggering toward the western gate on half-broken branches and marred with cuts across its trunk from the strikes of axes and sword, the gnarled tree-creature couldn’t reach its destination before a trio of Passguards caught up to it.

  Dressed in dark blue tabards with a mountain-shaped logo on the chest, and equipped with heat-resistant gloves and boots, the Quinn’s Peak Passguards represented the best hope for getting the Py’riel under control, spending much of their training focused on countermeasures for these attacks—although the countermeasures hadn’t fully prepared them for this scenario, as most assumed that a lone Py’riel might one day return to Quinn’s Peak, not six.

  Regardless, the Passguard fought on. Armed with axes and heavy wood-splitter swords, the three Passguards surrounded the wounded monster, blocking any chance of a clean escape. The Passguards hacked away at the Py’riel, severing more and more branches from the enchanted tree until it couldn’t retreat further. They chopped at its trunk, sidestepping the Py’riel’s purple motes of fire and coordinating their efforts on a weak spot between the Py’riel’s knothole eyes. Despite the threat of catching fire as they circled the immobilized but enraged Py’riel, the Passguards fought with limitless courage as the three guardians cracked through the outer yer, exposing the heart.

  Evelyn’s head stayed buried in Janine’s shoulders, but Janine and I couldn’t turn away from the show of heroic determination right outside our window. In a night filled with fear and devastation, watching the Passguards break through the Py’riel’s trunk and pierce its core of concentrated magic inspired hope within us—especially when we saw the monster topple over into nothing but sticks and kindling, its purple motes vanishing until the tree went dark.

  The Passguards took a moment to catch their breath before they noticed my flickering light, and then noticed the girls curled up at the windowsill. One of them, a man with disheveled gray hair and a mustache, jogged to the door and opened it. “Is it just you two in here?” the Passguard asked, trying and mostly failing to brush the soot from his face and tabard.

  Janine nodded, hugging her cousin tighter. Evelyn peeked up at the Passguard, her voice barely above a whisper, muffled by Janine’s shoulder. “Did you get them all?”

  “We did, my dear, there’s no more Py’riel to worry about.” The Passguard offered a friendly smile as he knelt down to Janine and Evelyn. “But right now I need your help. Tobias said you’d know where to find the fme-ward scrolls? We need as many as we can carry.”

  The girls led the Passguards to the storeroom, pointing out the scrolls for the Passguards to take. None of these magics were very powerful, but temporary resistance to fire gave them a chance to tame the inferno outside. They still had a long night ahead of them—I wished I could offer more of my magic to their effort, to make up for my meager efforts against the Py’riel earlier. I could only offer a silent promise that I would never allow this nightmare to happen again.

  As the Passguards readied to leave, Tobias shuffled through the snow back toward the magic shop. He stopped across the street, waving his wand to gather snow from the ground to bnket the remnant fmes of the former bakery and its surroundings, smothering the embers before they could spread further.

  “Daddy!” Evelyn burst out the front door, tumbling through the snow and hugging her arms around Tobias’ leg, tears returning to her eyes.

  Tobias picked up his daughter, sighing in relief. “I was so worried about you, sweetie. It’s okay now. It’s okay.” He turned to the Passguards as they left the magic shop. “Thank you for making sure they were safe, Warren.”

  “It seems like it should have been worse here, to be honest,” the mustached man said, pointing at the disturbed snow in the road from when the Py’riel first arrived. “It looked like they approached earlier, but stopped and turned around. Can’t say I’ve seen that before, they’re usually relentless.”

  Evelyn curled up in her father’s arms. “It was Janine’s neckce, it scared them.”

  Tobias adjusted his gsses, gncing at Janine and me in surprise. “Is that so?”

  Something was still amiss. Janine looked down the road toward the center of town for anyone else approaching the magic shop, seeing none. She turned back to her uncle, fearing she already knew the answer that escaped her lips with a quivering voice.

  “Where’s my mom?”