The night is cool and crisp around me, and it burns my skin. I don’t even know why I’m out here, out this late. He’d kill me if he knew (I know that he wouldn’t really kill me, it would be like killing a part of himself—figures of speech and all that). But he’d be furious. Not that I care. He just doesn’t want to deal with the hassle of taking responsibility for me if I’m caught out after curfew.

My fingers twitch around the box of matches in my hand, blue nails scratching the smooth cardboard. There are five matches left; I’d counted before climbing out the window. Five should be enough, but you never know. Most of the structures around here are made out of wood, anyway… I should be fine.

My skin feels tight, veins contracted, my heart all racy and nervous. I’m walking quickly, briskly, and the empty street resounds with my footsteps; most of the windows I pass, few and far between, are dark—I think I saw two that were lit. Not that it matters. I pull my cloak more tightly around me, fist still curled around my precious box of matches.

Suddenly, my ears pick up the sounds of another—the even breathing, the slow footfalls, the swish of a crisply pressed uniform. A Nachtwächter, no doubt. They smell female. She probably hasn’t sensed my presence yet, and a wicked smile stretches my lips. The inefficiency of the sovereign never fails to astound me. Why can’t they realize that their kind can’t outwit ours? We’re only ever in danger with them when we’re captured, and eluding them is easy, when it’s only one-on-one or even just a confrontation between two small groups. It was the invasion that broke us. My smile turns down.

Now we’re pets to them. With our superior senses and superior abilities—they only outrank us in intelligence. It’s the tools they create that give them a striking advantage. Without their knowledge and crafts, we’d be the ones inking our marks into their skin. We’d be the ones with the power over them. We’d have driven them out of our country long ago.

I tense, crouch down into the shadow of a tree, and wait, almost trembling from the anxiety of having to stay so still. Sure enough, the Nachtwächter passes me by moments later, swinging her stun baton flauntingly and whistling an ugly tune. I close my eyes to keep them from reflecting the light of the moon; the guards are taught to search the shadows for our glowing eyes, a definite giveaway. Soon she’s gone, and when I can no longer be bothered by that graceless song, I leave the shadows and return to the moonlit street. My fingers tighten around my box of matches, and my sense of restlessness grows.

I need to pick one, any one, and just get this over with, but by some masochistic fancy I’m compelled to draw this out a little longer. I close my eyes for a moment and feel the race of my heart pounding in my ears, the crawling of my skin, the desire, and then I slide open the box, pull out a match, and rip it against the gritty side. It flares to life, and my blood rushes. Eyes riveted on the dancing orange flicker, I turn and toss it to the side of the road. I wait—head spinning, heart pounding, adrenaline surging—dizzy and excited and then, yes, the fire jumps to life in the darkness, rounding the back of a bush, chewing its way into sight.

My box falls from my hand, landing beside my foot. I draw towards the fire, entranced and completely in love, reaching out to it but not touching it. It’s beautiful, orgastic, and I toss my head back, closing my eyes and listening to the crackle. My hair ripples down my back in long, blue waves, sliding over my shoulders, cool like the night around me, and I push my fingers into it, sighing in rapture. The bush is completely consumed now (I just know it is, envisioned so perfectly in my mind’s eye), burning brightly, and the grass begins to catch. My breathing is deep and hungry, and I turn my eyes back to my creation, licking my lips. The flame is dancing across the lawn, reaching for the house nearby. It will probably be a while before help comes, inefficient as our sovereign is, and I grin.

It’s almost reached the house, those orange and yellow fangs, and the remains of the bush still burn. Yes, yes, yes! The base of the wooden house ignites, the fire crawling up the side, and my lips part as my smile widens, baring pearly teeth and large incisors. I run my tongue over them, too, and then raise my arms and look to the nighttime sky. It’s beginning to fog with smoke, and I reach higher higher higher—and fall backwards in my euphoria. The stars are outdone by the light of the flames, and even the moon begins to pale in comparison. I start to laugh on the ground, the sound bubbling from my mouth, my voice cracked hysterically. I’m leaning back on my hands, long legs sprawled in front of me and bent slightly at the knee, and my cloak is twisted underneath me. I should be shivering with my upper body so bare—but I feel so hot.

There’s a scream from inside the house, and I jump up, laughing harder. So wonderful! Another scream, louder this time, distinctly female. A light goes on inside the house, though it’s plenty lit by now—both inside and out. My laughing quells into giggles, and suddenly I hear footsteps, many of them, and the rumble of an emergency vehicle come to save the day. Dammit, they’d arrived quicker than I’d expected. Quietly, I retrieve my box and bound away, slipping into the shadows (which are much thinner now), and head for home. My heart begins to slow, my senses calming and not so much on edge. There’s a certain relief in me, a gratification like no other, seeping into my muscles and soothing my restive body. Behind me, frightened voices raise and that lovely scream resonates through the air. The fire continues to roar and I continue to smile.

---

He turns the page of the newspaper spread in front of him. As he skims the print, he exudes a certain disinterest with which he tends to treat everything in life. “There was a fire last night,” he says.

I stare at him attentively. “Was there?”

He nods, pushing a raven strand of hair behind his pointed ear. “Not too far from here. One fatality. Hundreds in property damage.”

I smile, my heart giving an excited lurch. “That’s too bad.”

His red eyes flicker up at me, and my smile drops a fraction of a second beforehand. My gaze avoids his, tracing instead down the sinuous violet birthmark framing his left eye and snaking down the side of his face. It makes him look so gorgeously exotic, and its pattern is reciprocated on my body—everywhere, in painfully elaborate detail. “It is,” he says. “It is too bad.” I don’t think he cares, and the fact that he doesn’t share in the happiness I’m feeling is both a comfort and a disappointment.

He goes back to his newspaper and turns the page again. I sit there, catching sight of the grayscale photograph of the fire on the front page and privately basking in the afterglow of my insanity.