Chapter 16: The One Who Holds Back

"You smell like gasoline," I said.

I said it loud.

My jaw was shaking so hard it came out in pieces, but it carried.

Behind Torvald, people were running out of the birches toward the smoke.

Tove in her socks, the white-bearded man, a dozen of the pack.

And Vidar, out in front of all of them, coming so fast he was hardly touching the ground.

Torvald set the extinguisher down on the path.

"Of course I do," he said mildly. "I ran past a burning boathouse."

"You didn't run past it. You're standing up here with a full bottle."

"I was about to go down."

"The doors were barred from outside."

Vidar reached us.

He didn't stop for me.

He stopped for one breath beside his uncle, close, and I watched his nostrils flare.

His eyes went gold all the way.

Then he had Torvald by the front of his gray coat and slammed him back into a birch hard enough to shake the leaves down.

"You set it," he said. "With her inside."

Torvald didn't even raise his hands.

"Did anyone see me?" he said.

Six of the pack had Vidar by the arms before I could get over the fence.

The white-bearded man got between them, his palms flat on Vidar's chest.

"Not like this," he said. "Not without proof. You know the law, boy. You made us keep it."

"I can smell it on him."

"I can smell it on me," the old man said. "I came past the same fire."

Vidar's arms were shaking.

He let go of the coat one finger at a time.

Torvald smoothed it down.

He looked over at me, wrapped now in a jacket somebody had thrown on me.

"Twice she's wandered into danger alone," he said to his nephew. "Humans are fragile, Vidar. You'll want to keep her on a shorter leash."

Tove said a word I'd never heard her use.

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