[edited: 15/09/2017]

When Maksim awoke, his head was pounding and his body covered in rubble. He pushed it off as quickly as he could, groaning as his joints tingled with pain. People around him were running and screaming, some of them using their magic to help others so that the air was filled with a brilliant array of colours. It had stopped raining.

He stood up and felt an icy jolt of panic shoot through him. Remy. She had been stood beside him before the explosion, but now she could have been anywhere; Maksim had been thrown away from her before he had passed out.

He searched around himself desperately, ignoring the people passing by him with dirt on their faces and ripped clothes. "Remy!" he shouted, his voice hoarse but loud enough to overpower the other screams and sobs. "REMY!"

Tripping over wood and brick, he pushed through the crowd to get a better look. His stomach sank when she was nowhere to be seen, and he scrambled onto the cobblestones of Astracia, feeling a panic that flooded through his bones and tore away at his soul as he could not help but picture her lying alone somewhere, bruised and broken. It did not look as though anybody had been badly injured, though many were using magic for healing spells. And then there was that small part of him that reminded him of who she was: a mortal. If anyone was to be hurt in this attack, it would be her. The minor injuries around him meant nothing. 

"Maksim!" someone called from behind him, and he was so desperate to find Remy that he didn't realise it was a deep voice that could not belong to her. He whipped around and met the eyes of Tykon. His stomach sank. "What happened? We were called out from the Central—"

"Have you seen Remy?" he interrupted. "I cannot find her, Tykon ... I cannot ..."

There must have been something in his voice—desperation, perhaps— because Tykon's eyes widened in realisation, and he immediately began to examine his surroundings with an urgency that Maksim had never seen Tykon possess before. "Where were the two of you stood before it happened?"

"She was stood near the entrance. She told me that we had to leave." Guilt strained his voice and stung his eyes, or perhaps that might have been the awful smell of dark magic that remained. "She knew that this would happen, and I dismissed her worries. I did not listen."

"It is not your fault," Tykon responded, most likely out of obligation than because he was actually listening. He was pacing around the now destroyed building to where the entrance had been, debris crunching under his boots as he delved further into the wreckage. The air was filled with an abnormal amount of snowdust, as though the explosion had disturbed even that, and it clung to Tykon's hair and clothes like paint.

Maksim's gaze fell on something, then: a wall, the only wall that remained standing now. He frowned and inched closer to it, his heart racing as a halo of blonde hair pooled over charred remains just behind it.

"Remy!" he called again, but this time hope strengthened his voice. She didn't look back at him. Her eyes were closed and her body unmoving. Her pale skin was patchy with black dust, but he knew that it was her. He had known the moment he saw her. He ran to her and knelt beside her. "She is not conscious," he told Tykon, examining her as gently as he could. "She needs a healing spell."

"Is she breathing?" Tykon sounded as though he didn't want to know the answer, and Maskim did not blame him. He was afraid to find out himself. 

Before Maksim could check, Remy's eyes fluttered and he exhaled in relief. A moment later, they opened completely, and she frowned up at him as though he was the one who needed examining rather than her. "Hello," she greeted hoarsely, as though she had not been unconscious a moment ago.

"Are you in pain?" Maskim bombarded her with questions immediately. "Where does it hurt? Is it your head?"

The side of her head and wisps of her hair were stained with blood, but it already seemed to be drying out as she sat up slowly and shook her head, wincing only slightly. "I'm okay, but look." She pointed to the wall, but he did not dare take his eyes off her.

"Your head is bleeding." He reached to inspect the wound, but she caught his hands before he could. They were warm in his cold ones, and felt steady where his were shaking uncontrollably.

"No, Max. Look." Her grey eyes were pleading, and he couldn't help but do as she asked.

He gulped when he saw what she had meant. Four words were etched into the bricks, black and threatening, with a quote below it that he recognised from the religion lessons he had taken in the Foundation. He knew the message was for Remy, for it was in English rather than Refilyn's language.

FINAL WARNING, MORTAL GIRL

"THEIR FATE IS IN THE FIERY LAKE OF BURNING SULPHUR."

"My brother," he whispered, and sank onto the wreckage beneath him. "Of course this was his doing."

"Are either of you hurt?" asked Tykon, but Maksim was in a daze and his voice sounded distant. "We must get back to the Central Hall and report this immediately."

Tykon held his timepiece up and a bright light flashed before the three of them as he captured the image of the text. A crowd was gathering around the wall now, many of them talking in frantic voices and pointing to the words. Some of them, he knew, would not understand the foreign language. Perhaps they were lucky, for they would not feel the sense of dread that Maksim did now.

He shook his head and turned back to Remy. "Let me heal you first. You may have seriously injured yourself." Without thinking, he placed his hands on either side of her face to get a better look at her injury. He was glad to find that it was only a small cut on the side of her temple, though it was beginning to bruise where she had banged it.

"I'm okay, really," she replied, making no effort to pull away. "Tykon's right. We should go. We can't let this happen again." Her eyes were bright with trepidation.

She was the first to stand up, though she wobbled slightly when she did so that Maksim rose to support her. She cast him a grateful glance as they began to walk away from the wreckage, but it did not last long. A warlock, one that looked a few centuries older than Maksim's mother, stepped in front of the three of them and pointed at Remy. His skin was blistered. He had been caught in the rain.

"You," he said accusingly, his eyes pink and filled with hatred. "This is your fault. You brought those monsters here."

"No." Her face paled so that it looked a sickly white against her blood-stained cheek. "That's not true."

"Then how do you explain the wall over there?" When Remy didn't reply, he scoffed. "This is why mortals should not come to Refilyn. You bring with you destruction and danger."

"You are wrong," Maksim interjected, becoming increasingly angrier, and increasingly more aware of what was going on as his shock began to wear off. "This is not her fault. The Dark Ones do not want her; they want something that she has. She is trying her best to make sure that they do not get it and cause even more chaos. You should be thanking her."

"I should be throwing her into a void portal so that she may never return here, and you along with her, mortal lover."

"You should be doing many things," he said through gritted teeth, and though his tone was sarcastic, his hands were balled into fists and his arms stiff at his sides. "For instance, you should be helping the people around you instead of forcing your ignorance onto us. You should be accepting the truth of the matter, which is that it is our own beings who are in the wrong. Perhaps if you were not so frightened of one little mortal girl, you might be able to."

"Maksim." Tykon was waiting expectantly beside Remy, who had suddenly shifted away from him and was now shivering with her arms clutched around herself. Her jacket was torn around her elbows and shoulders. "Now is not the time. We must go."

Maksim glared again at the warlock before following the pair away from him. He could not help but notice that Remy could no longer look at him, and she seemed to be matching her pace with Tykon's to avoid falling into step with Maksim. "Are you in pain?" he asked her, taking longer strides to catch up with her despite the fact that his body still ached.

"I'm fine," she responded in a tone that implied she was not fine at all. Her eyes were narrowed and looked colder than they had a moment ago.

"Do not let one warlock's idiocy affect you. This is not your fault. I asked you to keep the key. I—" He was interrupted.

"Do you honestly think I'm annoyed at that?" she shouted suddenly, stopping in her tracks and turning to look at Maksim. Tykon appeared to be rather uneasy behind her. "I've been walking around here all week. I've been judged and scowled at, I've been called out by your people. I can deal with that."

"Then what is it? Why are you suddenly so angry?"

"I'm angry because you called me a little mortal girl!" Warlocks and witches, many of them with black rain smudged on their skin and clothes still, were watching Remy curiously. "I'm angry because even after everything that's happened here, that's still all I am to you."

Maksim sighed and rolled his eyes. "You know that I did not mean it that way. Please do not be so sensitive."

"Please," Tykon pleaded, glancing at his timepiece, "we must get back. The Council will wish to speak with you both."

"Oh, good," Remy spat, "the Council. More people that belittle me because I don't belong here."

"Remy," Maksim breathed gently, but she did not hear him. She was already marching off under the archway and into the Central Hall with Tykon.

Maksim had to compose himself before he did the same.

* * *

Remy felt dizzy and disorientated by the time that she reached the Central Hall, and the fact that people were running around in a panic did not help much. She found a chair to sit on and blinked against the silver lights that seemed nauseatingly bright to her sensitive eyes. Somehow, she had found the energy to shout at Maskim and walk away from him, but now that energy had been drained of her, and her limbs shook violently.

"Are you alright?" Tykon asked from beside her, his blue eyes soft with worry. He placed one arm gently between her shoulder blades.

She nodded and tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry and it felt as though her head might explode.

"You are not." It was Maksim, his face dirty and his clothes tattered. "Let me heal you."

Remy grimaced as Hilda arose from a crowd of unfamiliar faces and ran over to the three of them, with Annika trailing along behind her. "Maksim, thank goodness," she said, holding his arm rather awkwardly before turning her gaze to Tykon and then, eventually, to Remy. "You both look terrible. Were you caught in the explosion?"

"What gave us away?" replied Maksim sarcastically. "The ruined clothes or the fact that we can barely stand, perhaps?"

"Well, it obviously did not wipe out your sense of humour." Hilda rolled her eyes, but still looked worried. Remy barely noticed; she was rather busy trying not to pass out again.

"What I do not understand is why the Dark Ones have done this. What will they achieve?" Annika questioned, and Remy remembered last night again, how she had thought the witch wanted her key, how she had looked so strange hovering above her in her room. Now she looked nothing like that. Her golden eyes were the colour of soft caramel and her face was contorted into an expression of complete distress. To anyone that was not Remy, she would have looked perfectly concerned. 

"It was a threat," Remy answered tiredly. "They want the key. They know we can't let other people be hurt because of it the way they was today."

"You look as though you have a concussion. You do not look much better yourself, Maksim. I want the two of you to find somewhere quiet where you can heal yourselves." Remy thought that Hilda had forgotten about her inability to use magic—for once. "My office is free; you may go there. Meanwhile, I must attend a Council meeting." Her green eyes lingered on them both until Remy felt uncomfortable.

Maksim nodded and pulled Remy up by her forearm gently, guiding her through the Central Hall as best he could. Remy kept her head down, not wanting to see any more blistered skin as she pushed past hysterical citizens. She wished she could block out the sound of fear that circulated the hall, wished she didn't have to face people who looked just as much in pain as she was. Her ears still rang from the explosion and her skin still stung where the rain had touched it.

Eventually, they came to a small corridor much like the one in Maksim's home and he lead her into a tall wooden door that seemed to pain Maksim to open. "Are you alright?" she asked upon noticing his frown.

"You mean aside from being caught up in an explosion of dark magic?" Maskim raised an eyebrow, guiding Remy to a long love seat opposite a desk supporting piles upon piles of papers. "I am fantastic."

Hilda's office was warm and comforting, and the strong scent of feminine perfume swam around the room. It was darker, too, much to Remy's relief, with only one window facing the desk.

"It all happened so quickly." She put her head in her hands, replaying the grumble of noise and how cold she had felt in the darkness. Her headache was slowly spreading downwards so that her whole face throbbed.

"I should have listened to you. You knew what was going to happen and I ignored you. That was wrong of me."

"Maybe one day you'll stop underestimating me," she whispered. Maksim pulled her hands away from her face tenderly. He was looking at her very strangely, she noticed, as though he had seen something new in her that he did not recognise.

"I hope so." He held his hands to her temples hesitantly. "Do you mind?"

She shook her head no, though she didn't think it would make much difference if she did. He would still use his magic to heal her either way, and he made that clear by the determination set in his eyes.

A surge of ice flew down her spine suddenly and she gasped, her body buzzing with energy for a moment before Maksim took his hands away and she fell back, no longer in any pain, though she still felt dizzy.

"You should feel fine in a few hours," he said and stood up to gaze out of the small window on the other side of the room where the sky was still grey, though its usual pink was returning gradually. "Get some rest."

"A few hours?" she asked teasingly, but pulled her legs to her chest nevertheless, too tired to argue with his order. She had almost forgotten her anger at him, though a nagging voice at the back of her mind kept reminding her of his words: little mortal girl. "What kind of rubbish magic is that?"

"I suppose that in your world they deal with head injuries much more efficiently?" She knew that he was smirking even without him facing her; it was clear in his voice.

She laughed unexpectedly. She felt strange, the way she did when she was drunk, as though she was floating. Her head was light and her skin tingling. She forgot about the explosion and the key, about Sarah and how much she missed home. All she could think about was how comfortable she was and how soft the couch felt under her and how Maksim's eyes glittered when he turned to look at her.

"I should probably have mentioned that healing spells of the head can sometimes have side effects." He looked apologetic, but Remy couldn't fathom why; she had not felt this good in a while.

"I feel fine," she said and noticed that she was slurring her own words. "I feel great."

He gazed at her gravely, a sadness in his eyes that Remy could not comprehend in her current state. "I am sorry." He knelt down beside her and pushed a strand of dirty hair out of her bloodstained face. Remy watched him intently. "I should not have called you a little mortal girl. It was ... a force of habit, I suppose."

Her heart clenched and her happiness was gone just as soon as it had come, though she still felt intoxicated. "No, you shouldn't have called me that."

"I am tired of hurting you and putting you into situations where you are hurt. Look at you." He looked pained and utterly ridden with guilt as he examined her again, and it sent a pang through her chest. "I am not good for you, Remy. I try to be, but I am not."

She furrowed her brows in confusion and sat up, her forehead leaning against his. His breathing sounded just as ragged as hers did. "You could be if you weren't so afraid," she murmured. She wished she had the energy to say more, to rid him of his turmoil and tell him it wasn't his fault, but she didn't. She could barely hold herself in a sitting position.

He stood up then, taking his warmth with him as a light flush coloured his cheeks, and he bowed his head, going back to the window where she couldn't see him. He didn't look back at her again, and she didn't ask him to. Instead, she said, "The words. The quote. What does it mean?" 

"I do not know. My brother always did speak nonsense." 

"But the 'fiery lake'." She urged, despite the fact she could barely understand her own voice now. "Maksim, I had a dream last night of a lake. It ... I fell in it, and it burned. That can't be a coincidence, can it?"

"That was why you were so terrified." He sounded as though he was talking more to himself than to Remy, his voice distant, and she imagined how his eyes must have glazed over in the reflection in the window. Then, he turned around. "You need not worry about it now. We will figure it out, Remy. I promise you that." 

"I always worry about it." Even as she said it, she was dosing off, falling away from Maksim and the rest of the world. Even so, she made an effort to stay. "I always worry about you. I wish I didn't."

She was not making any sense, she knew, and it was perhaps for that reason he didn't respond—that, or the fact that she was asleep by the time he could.