“I wouldn’t have expected otherwise,” her daughter replied in earnest. “It’s always nice to have a backup plan if what I plan falls through.” Lilly stepped up to the railing and finished, “I do hope everything works out.” She looked towards the sea and said, “I always wanted to see a world not war-torn.”

“I would like to go see the Arcadian Empire again," Mrs. Prescott murmured. "I doubt that anything’s changed. I haven’t been there since I was a little girl."

“I doubt it,” her daughter replied. “They did start the war. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if the capital, Eagleshaw, had escaped the war with very few scrapes.”

She was right.

“I would still love to return to the city. My mother would tell me about how she spent summers in Howlvale when she was growing up,” Mrs. Prescott told her. “I wonder if her home is still there...." Mrs. Prescott sighed and turned away towards the sea, as if breaking the gaze between loved ones. “Are you ready to return home?”

Lilly nodded and glanced back towards the sea, momentarily watching the ocean-going vessels bobbing in the water.

The Central Clocktower rung out again.

Lillian’s father had been called away on business, and Marie had been whisked away by another series of gentlemen callers. This left younger brother Brian, Lilly, younger sister Elizabeth, and their mother for a quiet dinner, which made the meal awkward.

The streetlamps were lit, but no one roamed the streets. Perhaps a single brave soul wandered, but only the stray animals walked the stone roads. Windows were still shuttered and doors barricaded; Antham still planned for war in its time of peace.

Lilly went to her bedroom window and opened the interior shutters. Peering out through the small crack created by the two pieces of wood, she saw the Central Clocktower’s white faces standing out against the darkness of the night, but still distinguishable from a distance.

The Central Clocktower was out of order again, its parts taken to hasten the process of fixing the water supply; the electric power had gone out also, revealing the colorful cosmos above, unobstructed by the city’s lights.

But as Lilly watched from her window towards the Clocktower, the sky opened and it began to lightly rain.

The backdrop of the night sky lit up by a fireball blooming above the rooftops; the dark setting of Antham asleep was shaken awake. It wasn’t a powerful explosion, but it was able to startle Lilly as much as the clock tower’s chimes. But moments after, as she struggled to see the black clouds rising out of the faraway streets, the wispy shadowy smoke became outlined in a fantastic yellow glow. Mesmerized, she continued watching but pulled her head away when her bedroom door suddenly opened.

It was Elizabeth, dressed in a slightly soiled bed dress with her long sleeves pushed up, her hair disheveled and her eyes filled with a glossy fear. “Did you hear that?” she asked, still clutching the doorknob. Lilly nodded, and turned her head back to the window. Now the flames had gained some height, the tips licking the tops of the roofs.

The sirens hadn’t gone off yet.

“Go wake Mother and Father, then follow their instructions. I’ll go wake the servants and Brian, and then I’ll catch up with you, okay?”

“Wh-what if we can’t find you?” Elizabeth asked, beginning to cry.

“I will always come back, E,” she whispered, hands falling gently on Elizabeth’s face. Lilly pulled her into a tight hug and looked out the window again. The back wall of the homestead glowed in an orange light; now the flames were prominent, reaching out for the starry sky. The blaze had eaten away at about half a block, now beginning to move in all directions, and less than four blocks away from the Prescott townhouse.

The sirens had not gone off yet.

“Go,” she said, gesturing Elizabeth out the door. Her younger sister stomped, unintentionally, down the hall towards her parent’s room while Lilly treaded quickly upstairs to the attic space, but she arrived to find Edith packing her belongings into a large suitcase. “What are you doing?” she asked. “You don’t have time for this.”

“What if the house burns down?” she asked, shaking.

Lilly crossed the room towards Edith. “We’ll take that chance. Please, go downstairs now. I’ll wake everyone else up.” She turned back to the stairs, but the maid grabbed the girl’s arm.

“You go, Miss I will wake everyone.” The solemnness in Edith’s eyes told her not to argue, and Lilly nodded.

Still the sirens hadn’t gone off.

Lilly pounded down the stairs, running into her mother, Marie, and Brian, all dressed in nightgowns and pajamas, safe for her eldest sister, who was still dressed in the gown she had spent the evening in. “Where’s E?” Lilly asked breathlessly.

“She went downstairs to the study to see if Father is there,” said Brian, who pushed past his sister and headed down the stairs. Lilly followed with her mother and sister, who still didn’t know about the three blocks of houses that had been wrapped up in a blanket of fire.

Brian, upon reaching the bottom step, found Elizabeth with tears streaming down her cheeks. Gasping, Lilly ushered her upset sister out of the townhouse and into the street. “He wasn’t in the study. The-the room was dark and cold,” she spluttered, but it went unnoticed as the Prescotts joined the trickle of people departing for the north half of the Antham. It was calm; only a few panicked in the streets, yet the fire was still over two blocks away. There was only a light breeze that fanned the flames to the northeast. Fragmented pieces of charred material fluttered down from the sky like leaves on an autumn day. The stars in the night sky were gone, blocked by the fire’s powerful light.

Finally, the sirens wined through the streets.