Jones, like you told me to, and the soldiers marched into the street and started ordering everyone out of their houses.”
The baker paused for a moment. “That’s no reason to stop your deliveries, is it, Suzie? People’ll need their bread, whatever happens. Quick, take the next lot to the Masons. Don’t worry about the soldiers.”
“But—”
“Do it!”
The girl gaped at her mother. She shot Aurora a curious look, and then nodded.
“All right,” she said. “I’m going. I just thought you’d want to know.” With another glance at Aurora, she sped back out of the door.
“Thank you for the bread,” Aurora said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “I’ll look at the inn, like you said.”
“Nonsense, child.” The baker strode around the counter. “Better get you away quickly, hadn’t we, if they’re looking for you.”
“Looking for me?” Aurora tried to frown, pushing her panic away. That was the right look, wasn’t it, for innocent confusion? But the baker would have none of it. She grabbed Aurora’s wrist and pushed her toward the door behind the counter.
“At least go out of the back door, then. No point in dealing with soldiers if you don’t have to, if you ask me. It’s a quieter street back there, and not too far from the edge of the village.”
She ushered Aurora into a cramped storeroom, with sacks of flour resting against one wall and a huge counter covered in trays of rising dough against the other. The low ceiling was held up by two beams, and the baker swerved around them as she headed for the back door. “This way, this way,” the baker said. “No point in hiding you, they’ll only look, and then how will you get away? This door here now.”
Someone knocked on the back door. “Open up!” a man shouted. “King’s orders. We need to inspect the property.”
The baker jerked back, her hand tightening on Aurora’s wrist. She turned toward the shop front again, but the bell above the front door rang. Two soldiers marched into the bakery. They stopped when they saw Aurora, eyes widening. They might have known she was in this area, but they had not known she was in here. She should have hidden as soon as she heard they were looking for her.
The soldiers pulled out their swords, one shouting to the others outside. Aurora wrenched her wrist free of the baker and ran for the back door. A soldier kicked it open, and three men advanced into the storeroom, swords raised. Aurora scrambled back. She grabbed the dagger in her bag.
She had been foolish to think entering a shop would be safe. Now they would catch her, they would drag her back to the capital, back to King John’s booming laugh and his stony eyes and his threat of the pyre.
The nearest soldier grabbed for her arm. She dodged, panic and defiance swelling inside her, and fire shot across the storeroom floor. The soldier’s cloak caught, and he tore it away, yelling. The burlap bags burned too, and the wooden pillars in the center of the room. The baker screamed, and Aurora jumped around her, around the shouting soldiers, running for the door.
Her whole body seemed to blaze. She dodged, and she ran, out of the storeroom and onto the street.
More soldiers hurried toward the commotion at the bakery. Aurora spun on the spot. There had to be somewhere she could run.
“Stop!” one of them yelled. He held a crossbow. “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”
But he couldn’t kill her. The king wanted her brought back alive.
Smoke billowed from the bakery. Aurora swerved around the side of the building, twisting as a crossbow bolt flew toward her. Flames danced in the window. The baker was screaming.
Aurora ran onto another street, and then another, but the village was not that big. There was nowhere she could hide. She tore toward the edge of the forest, but her feet were aching and blistered, and she stumbled.
A soldier grabbed her arm. She shoved him away, fire crackling again. The man shouted in pain and let go.
The air stank of smoke. And the soldiers still ran after her, still shouted. Her head rang with the sound of their voices. They were going to catch her. There was nowhere to hide here, and they were going to catch her; they’d catch her, and the king would burn her, torture her, make her into nothing again.
She could not let that happen.
She sent flames across the ground, burning a line between her and the