There was one thing that spread more quickly than fire.
Its sparks shot through the town with invisible fervor, more like plague than like flame. This destruction carried itself on tongues and voices, sometimes loud, sometimes in whispers. They had their questions, their curiosities, but most of all, they had their explanations — "It's a farmer's regimen, burning it to help it thrive" — and their explanations — "Widow June-and-Ashers died two days back, and I think today's her burning day" — and explanations, explanations, explanations — "Some contingent had their gaze set on those woods." But all the noise fell away when she saw it herself: the smearing, too-black tattoo of oily smoke stretching across the sky, blotting out sight of the evening's swollen Glass Sun.
She'd been in the Bazaar to think. She'd bought a quarter skewer-broiled rabbit and chewed it in the throes of distraction. Greasy, stringy, unsatisfying. I don't even like the way it tastes. Then she'd browsed the tunics at one of the clothiers. In her nostrils, the chalky stink of smoke. He's lost his way. He defies logic. He's let himself grow dull; that is not your error, Glour'eya. Her eyes settled on a waist-sash of braided burgundy and silverhair. You owe him nothing. But he? He owes you—
"How much will you ask for this," she said, not looking at the woman at the stall.
No response.
"How much, if you please," Gloria asked again.
"Isn't that curious," the woman said, behind a too-tight breath.
Which is when Gloria realized the burning was not the stink of overcharred rabbit, and she followed the woman's upturned gaze.
One tower of smoke bleeding across the sky. In the distance, another. Black, stormy fingers reaching up toward the heavens. Despite the sweltering heat, a chill spiraled down Gloria's spine until the black tarsweat ran like insects behind her ears, poured from her underarms, and licked wetly at the small of her back.
She ran toward the Inquisitory.
Her unusual height, the bounty of her weight, it all forced the crowds of the day to part before her like peeled skin. She chuffed like a bison and barked at gaping boys staring up at the sky like hungry birds. She stank of Sun and dust and sweat by the time she arrived back at the Inquisitory, had lost her rabbit somewhere, somewhere — good riddance — and tugged a key from a skirt-pocket. Found the tumblers with trembling fingers. Twisted. Cursed. Drove a frustrated knee into the doorjamb, then found the catch, that smooth moment when the key kissed the iron teeth inside.
She threw the door open, and said only one word, perhaps louder than she intended:
"Come."