August's pale hands reached underneath the car and grabbed me before I could object. "Sorry, but I'm not waiting around for that to get any closer to us."

"Wait!" I shouted in my head as he turned and started to move in the opposite direction. To my surprise, he did stop, but he didn't look too happy about it.

"Wait for what? You know what that is, right?"

"Yes, but—"

"Because that is someone who is making fire in my storm. That is someone using fire as a fucking shield!"

"I know," I shot back before August tried to move again. "I know who she is. She's the reason I wanted to be taken to that hospital."

"Then why is she here?" August asked me.

I took longer than I intended to answer him. "I don't know."

August's eyes snapped back to the glowing ball of fire that had doubled in size as it grew ever closer. I watched him bite his lip before shaking his head vehemently from side to side. "No. No way, man. I don't know who or what this person is, but I'm getting a bad vibe from them. A seriously bad one. She's walking through my storm like its nothing. I can't even do that!"

"Then leave me here." Again, unintentionally, my voice came out harsher than I wanted it to. "I need her help."

"To save your friends, right?" August took a cautious step backwards from the fireball as I swiveled my head to face him. "Hornroot told me, back when he was fighting those monsters. I already said I want to pay back what you guys have done for me. Let me help you, not whatever that thing is that's still making a beeline for us, just so you know. I'm not all that great in a fight, but I want to help. By what you're saying, it doesn't even seem like you know for sure if whatever that is is going to help you."

I followed his gaze back to the fire beating back the rain. It was taking its time reaching us. I was almost positive she was doing this deliberately, waiting to see what kind of move we'd make before she made hers. I bit my tongue to stop another growl from escaping. They were becoming harder and harder to control.

"If you want to help that bad, that's fine. But my plan won't work unless I have her."

"What's so special about her?"

I glanced back at August. "Besides the fact she can control fire?"

"Yes. I mean, well, that's nifty and all, but do we really need it? I think if I can concentrate really hard I can maybe make lightning strike and that'll maybe cause a fire, or something."

"You know, you don't sound too convincing when you pepper in a bunch of 'maybes' or 'or somethings'." The sound of the sizzling water was growing closer and I looked towards the fire to see that it was halfway to us now. "But, no, that isn't the only thing. The witch who can control fire is the Master of one of my friends."

It was silent save for the falling of rain and the crackling sound they made as they met the fireball for several long seconds before August let out a single "Shit."

...

"This was definitely the last thing I expected to find out here," the voice from within the fire taunted. "A scraggly red head and an even scragglier fox."

August's arms tightened around my chest. While not as tight as Lady Lousie could do, it was enough to make me fidget.

"T-That's pretty cool, the whole fire thing," he said in a shaky voice. "How'd you make it—"

"Shut-up."

I tensed up and August shut-up. While the words came from the same place, from somewhere within the fire, the voice was entirely different. Not a teenaged girl's. Deep, guttural, and laced with growls.

"I've seen trees fall and cars pushed across the road, but you, scraggly thing, don't seem very bothered by this."

Despite the wind and the rain, the fire raged and I could feel the heat despite the girl standing a good few meters away from us. August must have felt it too, by how he took a single step back away from it.

"This is your storm, isn't it?"

The swirl of fire wasn't consistent. As it danced and twirled, I caught glimpses of what stood within it. Cold, dark eyes. A confident smirk. A blonde cat, with one green eye and one blue, cradled in arms concealed by thick sleeves.

"Don't let her know we can communicate this way," a new voice, Kat's voice, commanded inside my head when our eyes met. "She doesn't know about it."

She said the words so fast, I hardly had time to take them in. And when I did, August was speaking again before I could think of an appropriate response.

"Yeah, it's mine." His voice was a few degrees more confident, but he, consciously or unconsciously, took yet another step back away from the girl swathed in flames. "Are you with the Community?" His arms squeezed another fraction against my chest. "Are you here to bring me in?"

A laugh answered his question. It broke through the licks of fire and pounding of rain like a high pitched banshee. I felt every hair on my body stand up at once as August let out a distressed, ragged breath of stale air.

"No!" the girl exclaimed, still fighting down another fit of laughter. "No no no no. I've heard of you. August, right? At least, that's the name they gave you. What's your real name?"

August swallowed. I heard it, despite his storm and her fire taking over my senses. "I-I don't remember, actually. Been a long time since anyone asked me. Buh-Been so long since I've had to use it I kind of, just, fuh-forgot."

"That's sad," the girl said, not sounding very broken up about it at all. "Is August alright then? Is it alright for me to use the name they gave you?"

"It's fine!" August said quickly. "Totally okay!"

"Good." The girl within the fire's smirk widened, just a fraction. "You can call me Maple."

Fire, smoke, and death. Failure failure failure.

"Tell her you stole me," I cut in before Maple could start up again. "You want to make an alliance with her."

August started to glance down towards me. "What—"

"Don't look at me!" I practically screamed back at him. He listened, his gaze almost regretfully going back to the ball of fire. "She doesn't know we can talk like this. It'll be bad news if she does."

The weather witch offered me a curt nod I hoped only I could see before addressing his fellow witch, "Maple—"

"You're wondering why I'm here, right?" Maple interrupted, taking a few steps and washing away the short extra distance August had put between them. "Why I went through the trouble of tracking you down, if I'm not working for them? Well, two reasons."

Through the ever changing cracks between the fire, I watched Kat crawl up onto Maple's shoulder as the girl raised her arms. In response, the flames shot upwards, unwrapping themselves and creating a sort of dome that continued to protect her from the rain, but now allowing August and I to see her clearly.

She hadn't changed much in the months or so since I last saw her at the Exchange Ceremony. Still tall for her age, still thin, still wearing oversized clothes that I assumed were stolen. I had a sudden wonder how she could afford Kat, when all the other recipients seemed to have more wealth and power than I figured a single person normally had. Was it out of fear, then? The Community trying to appease a force they had no hope against in a straight up fight?

I hoped so. It was what I was banking on, after all.

"First, I wanted to see if I could," Maple went on. She ran a free hand down the back of her head, scratching furiously at a spot near the nape of her neck. That was the first difference I noticed. All her hair was nearly gone, barely an inch of it still clung to her scalp.

"And second."

The witch shot out her hand towards us. August nearly dropped me and he let out a screech as the fire answered its master, tearing its way across the damp pavement and bearing straight for the weather witch and I. Though the former scrambled, the flames and embers caught up and encircled us, cutting off his escape. The heat forced him to turn around and face the short-haired, brown skinned girl and her wild smile.

"I wanted to see if we could team up."

Another, deep swallow reverberated from August's throat. "O-Oh? Ruh-Really?"

Maple nodded. "You're just what I'm looking for. Too weak and feeble to be much of a threat, but with a power I find very useful. Especially because it does little to dampen my own."

The majority of her fire still remained a stable shield from the rain and, almost as if to further her point, the wall of flames that resided behind August tightened its corners. The damp of the downpour did little to shield us from the unyielding heat.

"So, what do you say, August?" Maple asked, spreading her arms wide much in the same fashion, I realized with mild unease, as Lady Louise once had. Only her twisted smile was much less serene than the Lady's had been. "Join me, and I can promise no one hunts you again. In fact, we'll be the ones doing the hunting."

"I don't like this, Alex," August's voice whispered in my head, frantic and strained. "I was beyond desperate when I joined the Lady, and she sounded reasonable. This...Maple is something else. She's making me think of Minerva, and you know how well that—"

"Look—" I started, but Maple was faster, louder.

"You like revenge, don't you?" she asked August. "Making those who made you suffer suffer in kind? Maybe even suffer more." She tilted her head and her smile diminished a bit as she seemed to peer closer at her fellow witch's face. "But maybe you've never experienced that feeling. Maybe you've just been running. Running and suffering with no way to get them back."

August said nothing. His voice did not enter my head again. Even when I called out to him, he remained silent.

"I can help give you that feeling," the girl pressed. "All that time you suffered, all that time you ran, we can make them run. We can make them suffer."

Silence.

Maple's smile was fading away entirely. The fire at our back felt closer, hotter. But August said nothing.

"Hey," I tried again, looking up into the witch's pale face and blue eyes. Eyes that looked so much like mine, in that moment, I wanted to be sick. "You remember what we talked about, like, five seconds ago? Whatever she has planned, it won't make things better."

The eyes switched from looking at nothing to looking at me. "And whatever you have planned will?"

"She's a force of nature. She just wants to destroy," I said. "But if we can direct that force, make it destroy something worth destroying, we can do some good with it."

Rain dripped down from August's face, trailing down the round cheeks and dripping off his tangled, red hair. Some of it fell into my eyes and I blinked. In that time, August was back to giving his full attention to the girl who could control fire.

"It's funny, actually. I was looking for you, too." The pour of the rain hit me harder as the witch pulled me out from the protection of his body to hold me aloft between him and Maple. "I stole the familiar of the Lady."

For a moment, the burn of death threatened to suffocate me, but Maple didn't even bother sparing me a glance. "I saw the fox. I said so, didn't I? Yes, I did, so why would you think I care? What use is a thing like that to me?"

"This part of your plan?" August hissed in my head right away.

The fire crackled and swirled through the rain, continuing it's protective presence around it's Master. The blonde and brown cat continued its lounging across her Master's shoulders. And while I heard no further words in my head, I could feel Kat's eyes focused solely on me—warning me.

But I only had eyes for Maple.

"Tell her I know where Madame Terrebonne lives."

August glanced at me, either in disbelief or in confusion, depending on how much more Hornroot had time to tell him about his new patron. But we both knew there was no time for clarification, so he soon brought back up his eyes and told Maple what I knew. The information I stole from Shepherd's mind.

And then Maple only had eyes for me.

...

*Author's Note*

Isn't there a saying about playing with fire? Something about it being bad, maybe? Oh well, I'm sure Foxy still knows what he's doing.

But what do YOU guys think? Is our fox jumping out of the frying pan, or is he falling even further into the fire?