It was her fault. All of this was. Lenesa couldn't stop her mental self-berating as she chased after Kivirra and Gil. If she hadn't so carelessly left Gil in Theiden's care and just checked before she sent the witch hunter home, the poor goblin wouldn't be running terrified through the city now. And cats and cauldrons, but that goblin was fast!

At least the running cleared her head, and distracted her from the pain in her shoulder and the discussion she had been backed into at her aunt's house.   The witches chased Gil up streets and through alleys, the little red mischief-maker always managing to keep just ahead of them.

At one point, Lenesa turned a street ahead of Kivirra, intending to cut the distance and catch up at the next block.  When she came to the next intersecting street, however, the witch and goblin were nowhere to be seen. Lenesa swore and ran up to the block where she had last seen them, but it was no use. She had lost them.

In the silence that followed in her failure, Lenesa realized that there was actually quite a lack of it—of the silence, that was, though she would have preferred the lack of failure instead. Cheering and music was coming from just a few streets over, and curious, Lenesa followed the sounds, despite the wringing sensation in her stomach that warned it was a bad idea and dangerous to get close to so many people.

It was easy to find the source of the noise—a large plaza at the top of the foothill this neighborhood was built on, with a clear view of the rest of Patachal city. It was difficult to see over so many of the people that had gathered, but it looked like a stage had been constructed in the middle of the plaza, and several ladies had lined up to show off in front of the crowd.

Curious, Lenesa drew closer, carefully weaving through the crowd of masks and painted faces, careful to keep her own face concealed. It looked like people were having fun, and she wanted to know what the commotion was about. She was cautious, however, of the large bonfire on the other side of the stage, half-hidden behind a fountain. Though far away, Lenesa could still feel the heat of the flames, and it was a grim reminder of what the city liked to do to her kind.

"Ladies, please give the crowd your best curtseys!" a wide-hipped matronly woman in a full skirt announced from the stage, gesturing to the other women beside her. The young ladies each gave their fullest smile and curtseyed to the crowd as gracefully as they could, and were met with enthusiastic cheers in return.

Lenesa's stomach sank as she realized what the fuss was about. She had heard of the midsummer competition for Flower Queen, but had never witnessed it until now. Usually, it was only the richest and prettiest ladies who were selected to participate, neither of which Lenesa was—not that she could have participated anyway. But it was still odd for her to think that there was a contest based purely on fortune, facial feature inheritance, and society's beauty standards. Almost all the women on display were like petite flowers and porcelain dolls, evidently used to being indoors and having men and servants cater to their needs. Their carefully measured movements made sure that they would never accidentally knock over a vase or trip on their own feet.

It wasn't human, Lenesa thought, to appear so perfect and fragile and to idolize people for it, and it unnerved her, more so than the leering masks and brightly-painted faces around her. What was more, the false friends and disloyal followers that the contestants would earn with their resulting popularity would, it seemed to Lenesa, only make them feel more isolated. She'd prefer to live alone in her cottage on Nagamora mountain than be surrounded by empty, hollow friends

But enough musing—she had dallied too long. Taking in a deep breath, Lenesa turned to fight her way out of the crowd that she had gotten herself sucked into, but froze as another hooded figure in the crowd caught her eye.

Like Lenesa herself, this figure seemed uninterested in the competition for Flower Queen. It was also wrapped in an odd shimmer that had the revelers around it unconsciously moving out of the way and not taking notice as the figure made its way through the crowd. The clues clicked into place, and Lenesa recognized the shimmer for what it was—an illusion of invisibility.

It had to be the Turned witch she had encountered earlier that day—the tattered edges of the cloak and the mudstains were increasingly familiar the more Lenesa looked.

Lenesa changed direction and started pushing her way through the hordes of people to reach the other witch instead. When she was close enough, she reached out and grabbed the hem of the witch's sleeve.

"You shouldn't be here," Lenesa whispered, careful to not draw too much attention lest it shatter the other witch's illusion. As it was, she attracted several stares of people who thought she was talking to herself.

"Let go," the other witch hissed, abruptly pulling out of Lenesa's grasp. "They killed my faun. I'll make them regret it. They will all die."

"There are children present," Lenesa whispered, her earlier antipathy from that evening vanishing at the thought. "You can't do that. You'll wipe out entire families. Innocent people."

The witch turned, hesitant, and Lenesa's heart jumped to her throat as she caught a glimpse of the woman's face under the hood of her cloak. Despite the clouded eyes and black lines that were very clearly creeping over her skin, Lenesa wondered, was it too much to hope that this one could still be convinced to leave without harming anyone? Her experience in dealing with Audeste had taught her to expect little when it came to dealing with Turned witches, but this witch's hesitation gave her some hope.

"I—it's not fair," the other witch whispered, doubt and heartbreak creeping into her voice. Her words and tone carried the same worries that Lenesa had found herself struggling with lately.

"I know it's not," Lenesa said. "But this isn't the way. Come on, let's go. I can help you."

Her efforts were nullified, however, by the sudden appearance of Decliteur as the Flower Queen contestants paraded off the stage and the head witch hunter took their place. Lenesa immediately stiffened, and beside her, the other witch also tensed.

"That animal," she seethed, surging forward before Lenesa could stop her.

"No—wait!" Lenesa cried, reaching out and just barely missing the witch's cloak. Her voice was swallowed by the wild cheers of the crowd as they greeted the head witch hunter's arrival.

"Ladies and gentlemen, masks and hoods!" Decliteur called out to the crowd after the noise had settled. "My men and I come to you tonight on this first day of Midsummer Week with a harrowing tale, one of adventure, suspense, and triumph. I present to you—the head of a monstrous faun from the forest!"

He gestured to the side of the stage, where two other witch hunters stumbled up the steps, carrying the head of the ill-fated faun between them by the horns. The audience erupted in a cacophony of gasps, cries, and cheers, and it took several minutes for Decliteur to quiet them. Lenesa looked away, feeling sick at the sight and trying to ignore the itch of the black marks as they crawled over her skin beneath her gloves. This wasn't good. Where had the Turned witch gone?

Think! Lenesa's mind whirled with the possibilities. If the witch had used an illusion of invisibility, she must be an illusion witch. That meant her attacks were limited, as they were just images and imagination. But she could trick people into harming themselves, and there was the large bonfire to worry about.

Lenesa bit her lip. There was no way of knowing what the witch was thinking, but using a danger that already existed, like the bonfire, would be one of the easiest ways to hurt a large group of people. And if the witch used raw magic to exacerbate the flames...

Panic shot through her veins at the thought, and the sensation had her fighting her way to the front of the crowd while they were still distracted by Decliteur's antics with the faun and tale of its capture.

There—Lenesa caught the glimpse of a shimmer, and her eyes widened in horror. The Turned witch had decided to use the bonfire, as Lenesa had thought, and was bent over near the flames, her hands working in circles as she summoned the flames higher with bursts of raw magic.

Heads were beginning to turn, distracted by the resulting pops and flares as the fire grew and the witch's antics drew more attention to herself, weakening her illusion.

It was too much. The witch was feeding too much of her energy to the bonfire, and it looked like it was going to explode at any minute.

Lenesa dropped to the ground, heedless of the disgruntled comments of others around her, and pressed her hands flat to the cobblestones despite the pain that still radiated from her shoulder at the action. If only Shwei were here—but she would only have to rely on her own powers now.

She had never done such a large spell before, but she knew how it worked in small doses. She had practiced it on herself several times in self-defense, imagining where an arrow would pierce or the next blade would strike so that the area was already protected against the injury by the time the potential harm reached it.

Heal. Lenesa visualized the chaos that would result from such a terrible explosion. Melted skin, horrible burns, blinded eyes, bodies burned beyond repair. The trick was to heal the wounds before they happened, to protect the bodies before they burned. If she put out enough of her magic, was it enough to deflect the attack that was to come?

A child's laugh carried over the noise of the crowd, and Lenesa furrowed her brow. The flames will not hurt you. A trickle of sweat made its way along her temple, though from the effort of her spell or the heat of the night, she couldn't tell and didn't care.

With her magic pouring into the earth like this, Lenesa became acutely aware of all the people, the lives, swarming around her. There were too many of them! But if she were to blast the other witch away with a burst of raw magic, it could disrupt the bonfire and make it explode anyway, and it would certainly guarantee that both Lenesa and the other witch would be caught by the witch hunters.

Then let them die, a somewhat-familiar voice whispered into her mind.

Lenesa's eyes opened at the thought and a gasp stuck in her throat.

"Hey, lady, you okay?" one of the people in the crowd said, and it was all Lenesa could do to keep herself from lunging at him. The dangerous voice had caught her when she was too weak and tired to put up much of a fight against it, and when Lenesa failed to reply, the reveler eventually shrugged and turned his attention back to the stage.

They don't care about you, the voice continued, now that it had Lenesa's full attention once more. You give so much and get nothing in return. It's not right. Protect what is yours, before you protect others.

Something shifted, though Lenesa couldn't tell exactly what. It was like a shadow fell across her eyes, or a flicker of light blurred her vision before making it clear again. Lenesa lost her hold on the lives around her, and the heartbeats were replaced with a sudden awareness of the crackling bonfire instead.

No—not just the bonfire. There were torches mounted in brackets all around the plaza. Their power and energy was hers to command. She could use all of it. And the Turned witch was continuing to build the deadly force of the pyre before her, so that any second now—

"No!" Lenesa shouted, scrunching her eyes shut and shaking her head to dispel the sensation. It was wrong. She didn't want to kill again. The faces of the guards at the river gate came back in her memory to haunt her. Was this what it was like to be Turned, Lenesa wondered?

The people around her turned to look at her outburst, but Lenesa dug her fingers into the cobblestones and sent another jolt of magic—healing magic—through the crowd.

Protect, heal, protect, she chanted in her mind. Please, please let this be enough.

"Hey," the same person who had spoken earlier tried again. "Are you sure you're o—"

He didn't have a chance to finish his sentence.

The bonfire exploded.