Have you ever wondered what it feels like to hold fire? Kind of warm, and if it’s a little fire, kind of tickly. Like holding a small animal or a bird, trembling feathers and swift heartbeat. If it’s a big fire, it’s like holding a firehose, only you’re throwing fire instead of water, and it’s pouring out of you, rushing from your fingers. But the power doesn’t just come from you. If it did, it wouldn’t last long because there’s only so much in you to start with. It comes from everything, from the ground under your feet, so you feel it rushing up your legs and tearing through your body like a torrent, rushing out of your hands like the biggest orgasm in the world. That’s what it feels like to play with fire.

We’d gone up to Maine, to the lair on the island, so that I could practice somewhere with lots of inflammable stone and metal, and so that he could see that everything was ok there. It must be kind of weird, being gone for months and months and coming back like that.

Kind of creepy, in my opinion.

Like the rooms that he said to leave alone. I went and looked later, when he was busy, to see what was there.

Clothes. Computer. Stuff. Things that belonged to two guys who are probably dead. Who didn’t think they were going to be when they left their beds unmade and their laundry on the floor. I went out and shut the doors again.

Mystique’s stuff was everywhere too, but that was ok, because she wasn't dead, just gone to Washington to see what was up since Senator Kelly disappeared.

The first night we got there really late, and it had been a 14 hour trip, so we were really tired. It was sleep in with him, or in the dead guys’ rooms, so I stayed with him and just slept.

In the morning I was lying there listening to the sound of the ocean, which I’d gotten used to in Mexico, and looking at the reflection of light from the skylight shaft far above. The bed was cast iron, and it had about twenty pillows in various shades of blue, from kind of pale turquoise to dark purple indigo. And three comforters, and one of those soft nubby throws in four shades of aqua. Really comfortable.

I looked around to see him watching me. “This is Mystique’s place, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “But she won’t mind. If you want you can pick another room for yourself.”

I shrugged. “Whatever,” I said.


I showed him what I could do. In a big stone cavern with nothing to burn, I turned fire into a river, threw it fifty feet and caught it like a yo-yo, widened it into a wash of flame and fined it to a thread that was so hot it turned white. By the time I finished I could hardly stand up. My knees were shaking with the power that had passed through. I sat down on the cold stone floor, cross-legged, and put my aching palms flat against the rock.

He sat down beside me more slowly. “Impressive,” he said.

I just needed to breathe for a minute. I’d never cut loose like this, at the school. There was always something that could burn.

“You have an invaluable talent, Pyro.”

“Thanks,” I said. I tried to sound like I didn’t care what he thought, but I don’t think I did.

I looked, and he wasn’t scared. Lots of people are. He wasn’t worried, like the Professor and Mr. Summers were, that I was going to burn the house down. I tried to figure out what the expression was, and then I knew.

“Have you ever held fire?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

I clicked the lighter again and made a little puddle of flame in my hand, as small as a marble. “Here,” I said, “put your hand around the back of mine.”

He cupped his hand around mine, around the flame in my hand, his face intent and beautiful in the faint firelight. I could feel the warmth of his hand against mine, the heart of the fire encircled in my fingers. I opened them just a little, so that he could feel the radiant heat. “Like that,” I said. “That’s what it feels like.”

He looked like it was amazing, like he’d always wondered what it would be like to hold flame in the palm of your hand. “It doesn’t hurt?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. Does it hurt when you bend metal?”

“No,” he said. “It feels wonderful.” His brows furrowed just a little, and he leaned closer, as though he were getting as close to the fire as he could.

I grew the fire a tiny bit, casting shadows of my fingers across his face. I looked into the heart of the flame. “It feels better than anything,” I said. “Like I couldn’t breathe if I couldn’t touch it ten times a day, just run the fire through my fingers.”

“I know,” he said, and I remembered. No metal, not for six months.

I snuffed the fire with my fingers and kissed him. It was heady and deep and awkward and hot, and my head was spinning. His hand was on the back of my neck, running through my hair like it was silk. I wanted to touch skin.

He stopped me, looking at me with that faint expression of worry, his eyes as dark as shadows behind flame, though I could see the tension, the desire. “You’re sure?”

“I like playing with fire,” I said.