Flame — Alicia Vickers

She is sixty now, living alone in a stone cottage at the edge of a national forest. The walls are thick, the roof is slate, and there is not a single smoke alarm in the house. She doesn't need them. She has become the thing that fire respects.

On winter nights, she heats the entire cottage by lighting a single log in the hearth and then holding the heat—keeping it from spreading, keeping it from dying, keeping it exactly warm enough to read by. She has written a book about her life, but she hasn't published it. She has trained three young people who came to her with the same shimmering air, the same frightened eyes. She taught them what Corin taught her, and what she taught herself: that fire is a conversation, not a command. alicia vickers flame

Her father, Elias Vickers, called it "the family temper." He was lying. He knew it, and eventually, so did she. She is sixty now, living alone in a

She walked in, and the bell above the door chimed. Elias looked up from a box of nails. His eyes went wide, then wet. She has become the thing that fire respects

She was not born with the surname Flame. That came later, like a struck match.