Agnes looked up at me, her face twisted in pain. "I think I've broken my arm," she said, holding her left arm close to her chest.

The smoke from the burning barn was getting thicker by the second, and I could feel the heat of the flames below. We needed to get out of here, and fast.

"We need to find a way out. How did you get in?" I said, looking around and noticing the hole in the roof. "How did you get up on the roof?"

"Fiona helped me, carried me to the farm, but something happened which distracted her. I don't know what, one minute she was there, the next I was falling."

Climbing to the hole Agnes had created wasn't an option. It was at the apex of the roof. There was no way to reach it and even in there was, Agnes wouldn't be able to climb even if there was. There were no other windows, no doors, just the hayloft and the fire below, which was spreading rapidly.

Marcus was already on his feet, searching for a way out. "There must be something," he said, looking around the hayloft.

But there was nothing. We were trapped, with no way out except the roof or the barn door, the way we came in. Going back down was no longer an option as it was a raging inferno, the flames licking at the wooden beams that supported the hay loft. Soon the straw up here would catch alight.

I felt a surge of panic rise in my chest. We were going to die here, burned alive in this old barn, all because of Alun's twisted revenge.

"Evie," Agnes said. "You have to use your powers. It's the only way."

I looked at her. My powers? What powers? I was just a normal girl, not a superhero.

But even as I thought about it, I felt that strange energy coursing through me again, like a current of electricity running just beneath my skin. It was the same feeling I had earlier, when I was trying to make the plants grow.

I looked down at my hands, half expecting to see sparks flying from my fingers. But there was nothing, just the smooth skin of my palms.

"I don't know how," I said. "I don't even know what my powers are."

Agnes reached out with her uninjured arm and took my hand. "You have to try, Evie. It's our only hope. Remember, it's all about balance. This fire is destruction. You need to find the balance to that destruction."

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the strange energy within me, searching for the balance around me. I tried to imagine the energy flowing through my body, through the barn and the land outside. I felt dizzy with the unsettling sensation, or was it the smoke gathering around me? I tried to gather the energy in my hands, ready to be set free as if I was Doctor Doom.

But nothing happened. The sensation stayed inside me. The flames rose higher, the smoke thicker and more choking with each passing second.

"I can't do it," I said. "I'm sorry, Agnes. I'm so sorry."

Agnes squeezed my hand. "Think about balance, Evie. What does fire need to balance it?"

My mind was racing. The smoke was making it hard to think. I needed to think about balance. Fire ate up oxygen. It consumed everything in its path. But what stopped it from eating?

"Water," I said. "Fire needs water."

Agnes nodded. Her face was ashen against the growing inferno below. "Yes, and you are an Earth Elemental. You have a connection to all the elements of nature."

I did feel that connection. It was like a thread running through me, connecting me to the earth and everything in it, but standing in the hayloft I was separated from the earth. I had never even tried to link with water in any way. Whereas the earth seemed solid, what Agnes was asking me to do was like trying to catch a stream of water in my hand.

The flames crackled below us, a wild, living thing. I had no choice. In the midst of the chaos, I closed my eyes and looked for the calmness of a river or the stillness of a lake. That's what water always meant to me. I had a nagging feeling I should be seeking the pounding waves of a storm to put out this fire, but that was too big to even imagine.

I reached out with my mind, searching for the moisture in the air, the wetness of the surrounding wood. It was there, but quickly drying, as the raging fire consumed it.

"Please," I begged in my mind to whatever force might be listening to an Earth Elemental's plea. "Please help me find the balance."

The energy surged through me again, but this time, it wasn't the sensation I had experienced in the lighthouse. It was like a cool breeze. My skin prickled. I could feel the heat of the flames on my skin and the cold from the energy inside me.

"Water," I said. This time my voice was clear. It was like the words were carried by the water itself.

There was a noise above us. It wasn't the roar of the fire or the crackling of the wood. It was a soft pattering that grew louder. Drops of water began to form on the rafters above us. The water dripped down.

Rain. Inside. Rain inside the barn!

It started as a drizzle, but soon it was raining like a monsoon. I must have tapped into the water outside of the crisping air of the barn.

The fire hissed as the water hit it. Steam rose up around us, hot and scalding. It was hard to see, but at least the fire was being doused.

Marcus looked at me in disbelief. "You did that?". I notice Agnes's pained expression turn briefly to one of relief and wonder.

"We're going to be ok," I said. I felt a glimmer of hope. As I spoke, I felt a wave of exhaustion over take me. The impact of finding balance winded me. I fell to the ground in a heap. I was in pain all over and for a moment, I couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't breathe.

"Evie, are you ok?" Marcus said, crouching down beside me. He seemed hesitant to touch me. I wasn't the weak woman he had tried to control for all those years. I no longer needed his protection.

I nodded. "We need to get out of here. It won't take long for Alun to realise something is wrong."

I was sore but didn't think anything was broken. I turned to Agnes, expecting to see her standing where I last saw her before I collapsed. Instead, I saw her lying in the hayloft's straw, pale and limp.

She wasn't moving, and I couldn't tell if she was breathing.