Firebug Read Free Page A

he’s headed for the park,” I heard. Ezra’s voice was so clear, it sounded like he was right next to me, whispering. My earpiece looked like it was part of a high-tech walkie-talkie. The idea was similar, only ours ran on a spell. Safer that way. Actual walkie-talkies run on radio waves, and those can be intercepted. Not a great idea when you’re working for the Coterie. But ours? I could speak safely into the microphone attached to my watch and know that only Lock and Ezra heard me.
    â€œAs your eye in the sky, I feel I should inform you that there’s a pond in the park.” Ez and Lock had flipped a coin for roof duty. Lock won.
    Cursing to myself—though the boys probably heard it—I doubled my speed and shot out of the alley I’d been running down and across a street into a play park. The night was so cold, my breath crystallized in front of me, so the park was understandably empty. The ice creature was closer to me now. He was getting tired and had been slowing down, but as soon as he saw the playground, he put on more speed, heading toward a small frozen duck pond ahead of him. The ice might be thinning, but it was still ice. It was still his element, and I had to keep him away from there. He stopped tossing ice missiles and focused on running. Which was his mistake. The only things keeping me at bay so far had been the distraction of dodging and attempting to close to a better distance.
    â€œFrom the sound of your panting, I can tell we need to start jogging as a team again. Clearly you’re not training on your own. Ezra, stop groaning. It will be good for you. By the way, Ava, Ez is in position and I don’t see any cannon fodder about, so we’re a go.”
    Owen would have started on the outside—enveloping the creature in a low flame until he melted slowly away, fully aware the whole time. The Coterie and Owen: a match made in heaven. Or, more realistically, a match made in much warmer and brimstone-y climates.
    I am not Owen.
    I concentrated on something small—the creature’s frozen heart. Ice elementals are made of snow and frost and other wintertime things. But deep in their chest lies a heart that looks like a Swarovski crystal about the size of an apple. It’s hard and dense, and if I tried to do something pedestrian like hit it with a bullet, nothing much would happen. I mean, yeah, it would shatter, but after about three seconds the elemental would just fuse it back together. Magic.
    But I wasn’t going to shatter it—I was going to melt it. If this were a movie and I the action hero, this is where we’d have a dramatic standoff. The creature would ask me why, and I’d either apologize or give my tortured reasoning. But this wasn’t a movie. The creature didn’t care why I had to do it. And I’m not much of a hero. So before he could reach the ice, and without a single word, I concentrated until a white-hot flame erupted in the elemental’s chest.
    I stopped running, my hand glued to my side as I stood gasping, hoping the stitch there would go away soon. His heart gone in the smallest of seconds, the elemental probably didn’t know what hit him. Or, at least, he hadn’t had time to care. That was the most I could hope for.
    Yanking my phone out of my pocket with half-frozen fingers, I took a picture of the melting elemental—the proof that would get the boss-monkey off my back for a little while.
    We waited until he was a puddle. Lock tossed a handful of seeds from his pocket into the water. Green sprouts shot up, opening out into large, heart-shaped leaves. A sea of tiny blue flowers erupted between the leaves.
    â€œPretty,” Ezra said.
    â€œ Brunnera macrophylla —a perennial forget-me-not.” Lock looked up at the cold, clear night sky. Though we were an hour from home, we were still far enough from Boston that there wasn’t much light pollution. “It’s an early riser,