window was broken, but the ones on the other side of the door were intact. The roof looked sound, too—which was just as well, because that’s where Cullen sat, his feet dangling over the edge. His jeans were burned partway up the calves. His lower calves and feet were black and oozy. He sat there and swayed as if there were a high wind.
A pair of firefighters stood on this side of the pumper truck aiming their own scowls at the wobbly man on the roof. It looked as if they’d started uncoiling a hose, but hadn’t gotten far.
Lily exchanged a quick glance with Rule. “I’ll take Fagin.”
“I’ll take Cullen. Scott, call Cynna. Keep her updated.”
They split up—Scott staying behind, Rule stopping short of the porch, and Lily hurrying up the porch steps.
“Lily.” Fagin’s smile was a shaky facsimile of his usual beaming welcome. “My feet are a mess, but . . .” Another short coughing fit. “My new best friend kept it from being worse. He threw me to the floor behind my desk and covered my body with his own. But my feet are broadcasting enough pain for two of me.”
“Then let them put that mask on and take you to the ER,” she said firmly.
“I don’t need—”
“If it gets you to those painkillers quicker, why are you arguing?”
“Ah. Hmm.”
Behind her Rule said, “How bad are you hurt?”
Cullen’s voice was strong enough, though the words were a bit slurred. “Tell ’em to—”
“Cullen,” Rule repeated with a new note in his voice, “how bad are you hurt?”
A second’s silence, then: “Feet, ankles, lower calves. That would be roughly nine percent of my body, so it’s not too bad. Third degree on my feet. I can’t feel ’em. I sucked down some smoke, but that’s pretty much cleared up.”
Lily caught Scott’s voice, quietly repeating that to Cynna.
“All right,” Rule said. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“Battery’s dead. I need you to stop them.”
“Stop who from what?”
“No water. Water ruins books. And the elemental doesn’t like it. Fire doesn’t bother it, but it hates water. That’s why it—you stay back.” He pointed.
Lily looked over her shoulder in time to see a thin stream of fire dance on the ground in front of the captain. The man backed up. Quickly.
“We’re going to have to shoot your sorry ass if you don’t quit that,” the captain growled. “You’re in enough trouble already. You’re hurt. Let us help you down.”
“No.”
The EMTs were loading Fagin onto the gurney. He hissed and muttered as he was shifted, but didn’t seem to be in shock. Lily moved off the porch so she could see Cullen with his dangling, blackened feet glowering down at Rule. “No firemen,” he said. “No water.”
Rule said, “You put out the fire?”
“Fagin’s elemental isn’t fast enough. Earth elemental, y’know. Not quick. So I did it.”
“And you’re sure there is no ember, no tiny trace of anything smoldering?”
Cullen was scornful. “’Course I’m sure. It’s Fagin’s library . The bastards firebombed his bloody library. Bloody damned irreplaceable shit in Fagin’s library.” He scowled in contemplation of the magnitude of this offense, then added as an afterthought, “And there’s the elemental. Doesn’t like water. Might hurt someone. Can’t let it hurt them, can I?”
Fagin—who’d finally allowed them to put the oxygen mask on and was being wheeled away to the nearest ambulance—pulled the mask down again. “No hosing the house,” he ordered, then coughed some more.
Lily glanced back at him. “I’ll take care of it. Keep your oxygen mask on and behave.” She pulled out her ID once more. “Captain, may I have a word with you?”
It helped that the captain was basically a reasonable man. He was royally pissed at Cullen, of course, but when Lily explained who Fagin was and that his library might contain documents vital to national security, he was willing to listen. When she told him Cullen was Fire-Gifted and able to put out much larger fires than this had been, he snorted, but kept listening.
It helped even more when the elemental chimed in.
She was talking to the captain when she felt it—a vibration groaning up through the soles of her feet. She grabbed the man’s arm. “What the—”
“Son of a—”
The rest of the captain’s exclamation was lost in a sudden crack! like a muffled gunshot. The sidewalk near the street buckled. “What the hell?” He glared at Cullen. “I’ve had it with you. Officer—”
Cullen peered down. “Not me. The elemental. Uh . . . you might want to get your