Fire began in heat and smoke and light. Like some preternatural beast clawing its way from the womb, it burst to life with a cackle that rose to a roar.
And changed everything in one magnificent instant.
Like that beast, it slithered, snaked its way over wood, and scored what had been clean and bright with its black and powerful fingers.
It had eyes, red and all seeing, and a mind so brilliant, so complete, it memorized everything in its orbit.
He saw it as a kind of entity, a gilded, crimson god that existed only to destroy. And it took what it wanted without remorse, without mercy. With such *ardor.*
Everything fell before it, kneeling supplicants that worshipped even as they were consumed.
But he had made it, created it. So he was the god of fire. More powerful than the flames, more canny than the heat, more stunning than the smoke.
It hadn’t lived until he gave it breath.
Watching it become, he fell in love.
The light flickered over his face, danced in his fascinated eyes. He took a beer, savored its sharp coolness in his throat as his skin streamed with the heat.
There was excitement in his belly, wonder in his mind. Possibilities flashing through his imagination as the fire streaked up the walls.
It was beautiful. It was strong. It was *fun.*
Watching it become, he became. And his destiny was scored into him, branding heart and soul.
BALTIMORE, 1985
Catarina Hale’s childhood ended on a steamy August night a few hours after the Orioles demolished the Rangers at Memorial Stadium, kicking their Texas butts—as her dad said—nine to one. Her parents had taken a rare night off to haul the whole family to the game, which made the win all the sweeter. Most nights one of them, often both, put in long hours at Sirico’s, the pizzeria they’d taken over from her mother’s father. And the place where, eighteen years before, her parents had met. Her mother, a young, vibrant eighteen—so the story went—when the twenty-year-old Gibson Hale had swaggered in for a slice.
Went in for pizza, he liked to say, and got myself an Italian goddess. Her father talked weird that way, a lot. But Reena liked to hear it.
Got himself a pizzeria, too, ten years later when Poppi and Nuni decided it was time to put their traveling shoes on. Bianca, the youngest of five and their only daughter, took it over with her Gib as none of her brothers wanted the place.
Sirico’s had stood in the same spot in Baltimore’s Little Italy for over forty-three years. Which was even older than Reena’s father, a fact that amazed her. Now her father—who didn’t have even a single drop of Italian blood in his whole body—ran the place, along with her mother—who was Italian all the way through to the bone.
Sirico’s was almost always busy, and a lot of work, but Reena didn’t mind, even when she had to help. Her older sister, Isabella, complained because sometimes she had to work there on Saturday nights instead of going out on a date, or with her friends. But Bella complained almost all the time anyway.
She especially complained that their oldest sister, Francesca, had her own bedroom on the third floor while she had to share with Reena. Xander got his own room, too, because he was the only boy even though he was the youngest.
Sharing with Bella had been okay, it had even been fun until Bella got to be a teenager and decided she was too old to do anything but talk about boys or read fashion magazines or play with her hair.
Reena was eleven and five-sixths. The five-sixths was an essential addition because it meant she had only fourteen months until she was a teenager.