Burning

Under cover of the fire from above, the police could not approach for the moment. The gray-robed men turned their horses around, intending to drive away down the road.

Hesta covered Valeria and her companions as they entered a nearby building, then vaulted out through a window and onto the roof.

"Jane!" Valeria chased her to the window. "Where are you going?"

A burst of bullets shattered the wooden windowsill. Flying splinters cut Valeria's face, and she screamed, ducking to the floor and quickly retreating to safety.

Hesta ran along the roof ridge, clearly sensing two snipers tracking her movements. Bullets continually shattered tiles and eaves all around her. She raised a hand and plucked a flying stone from the air, then calmly leaped up and hurled it toward the snipers' position.

"...Damn it, Quicksilver Needles!"

The pursuing gunfire stopped, and Hesta jumped down from the roof. She had noticed earlier that in the alley beside the battlefield—a narrow lane separated from the gunfight by only one building—several children around their teens were running at full speed. The youngest looked barely older than Eleven. Each held a beer bottle in her arms, their expressions resolute. Clearly, they too were part of this fight.

So the snipers had been covering these children.

The children quickly scattered at an intersection, each slipping into a different place. Moments later, a carriage suddenly turned there and flew over the steep stone steps.

"Comoros! They're here!" shouted a gray-robed man on the carriage.

Then Hesta heard that familiar shriek of a red falcon again.

The pursuing police officer braked hard. Without even stopping to straighten his cap, he shouted in a voice nearly cracking, "Watch out! It's an ambush!"

The answer came in the form of firebombs thrown down from above.

The instant the bottles