The blast had faded. For a heartbeat, the world held its breath, white spots still burned across my vision. My forearm throbbed. Mom’s sleeve was scorched through, her skin blistering beneath singed fabric. The trees nearest Syrin were on fire.

  Then the screaming started.

  People who hadn’t already run bolted, now stumbling over foliage and each other. Someone shrieked, “WHAT WAS THAT—?!” Another voice yelled for security. A mom dragged two crying kids away, their faces flushed. A man staggered past, holding the side of his shirt where the fabric had melted into his skin. A teenager clung to a railing with shaking hands, the skin on her neck red and starting to blister. Someone farther back lay on the ground, dazed, as two others tried to help him up. Three others who’d gotten too close were stumbling away, clutching their arms and shoulders. Their skin looked burned.

  None of them were looking at us. I dashed back into the little clearing, dropping to my knees beside Syrin and ignoring the way the movement made my own burned arm throb. He didn’t move. His glow was gone. Completely gone, though heat still shimmered faintly around him. It wasn’t enough to burn now, but enough to make my skin prickle. His face was pale, lashes dark against his skin. Sweat had plastered his brown hair to his forehead, but more than anything, he was too still.

  My heart seized.

  Mom hauled me back by the elbow, her hand pressing to his neck to check for a pulse. “He’s alive,” she snapped. “Help me get him up. Now.”

  She slid her hands under Syrin’s arms, and I scrambled to do the same, lifting his dead weight. He sagged between us like a puppet with cut strings.

  We staggered backward into the trees, Syrin’s feet dragging ruts through the dirt.

  Mom’s head whipped toward the movement on the path. A cluster of people had stopped, frozen in shock, phones raised. She marched toward them like a storm, and we emerged from the trees and bamboo.

  “Burn victim!” she shouted, voice sharp enough to cut pavement. “MOVE! Back up, everyone BACK UP! Someone go help the others!”

  They flinched so hard one person dropped their phone. Another stumbled into the bamboo trying to get away. We shoved through people, dragging Syrin between us. Bodies instinctively recoiled from the heat still clinging to him. Every few seconds my arms slipped on his weight, my breath hitching, but I didn’t let go.

  Zoo staff rushed up the path. Someone’s walkie crackled, “—report of explosion in the Forest Loop—evacuate visitors—”

  One of them stopped us. “What happened!? Is that kid—”

  Mom cut him off. “There’s a fire. He was burned. I’m a nurse, and we are moving him to a safe place. Others need treatment. You should head up there now. And call the fire department.”

  The woman’s eyes widened.

  “Where’s the nearest medical station?” Mom demanded.

  The employee muttered some directions, then started yelling frantically into her radio and ran up the hill. Mom started forward again, and I just kept moving, Syrin’s weight tugging at me. One foot in front of the other, I reminded myself.

  My arm ached with every step, and my breath was coming too short. Then Syrin started to glow again, just faintly.

  “Mom!”

  She cursed. We stepped into the bamboo until it hid us from the path and lowered him to the ground. His glow flared again, gold.

  That was wrong. It couldn’t be gold. Gold was good. Gold was content or curious—good things. Syrin wasn’t even awake.

  “Syrin!” I said, shaking him slightly. His eyes didn’t open, but his glow crept outward, almost… alive.

  “I don’t think this is him,” Mom muttered, watching the glow warily.

  Not Syrin. “The Light?” I whispered.

  Mom hummed in affirmation as a golden tendril lifted away from Syrin like some kind of heavenly, liquid-gold tentacle. It reached for me, and I flinched back.

  The golden light paused in the air, then veered toward Mom instead. She stared it down but didn’t back up. The Light brushed her shoulder, almost gentle, and slid down her arm. Mom sucked in a breath as the blistered skin turned gold… and then the burn simply faded.

  “Oh,” I whispered. “Is it…?”

  “Healing,” Mom said, eyes fixed on the Light curling through the air, like a living stream of gold. “Perhaps the Light sees us as allies. We protected him.”

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  The Light moved toward me. I held still as it wrapped around my arm. My skin glowed gold, and then the pain vanished, leaving smooth skin behind.

  I thought about all the injured people up the hill. “Should we go back and help?”

  Mom shook her head. “I have no idea what the Light will do. We need to get out. Now. If something else comes through, things will get worse.”

  I nodded, and we hauled Syrin between us again. I staggered a little under his weight, but we kept going.

  We broke out of the bamboo and onto one of the main walkways. It was normally serene and shady, the kind of path where kids held maps upside down and parents pointed at animal signs.

  Now it was a river of people. Visitors poured down the path, some crying, some yelling, some clutching their kids’ hands so tightly the children stumbled to keep up. An employee in a khaki vest was shouting into a megaphone, “Please remain calm! Make your way toward the main exit—do not stop to take photos—please keep moving—”

  Mom didn’t hesitate. She angled us into the flow of bodies like merging into traffic.

  “Burn victim coming through!” she barked.

  The crowd parted in startled, jerky movements. A few people gasped at the sight of Syrin limp between us, his head lolling, hair a mess, and clothes wrecked like he’d been in an explosion. If anyone noticed the faint warmth still radiating from him, they didn’t comment. They were too busy not getting trampled.

  I clung to him harder as the path turned into a slope. “He’s so heavy,” I choked out.

  “He’s also almost six feet tall,” Mom said briskly, “and unconscious. Keep going.”

  A zookeeper rushed up beside us. “Is he—what happened? Is he burned?”

  “There was an explosion,” Mom said in a tone that brooked no argument. “He needs a burn unit, not a Band-Aid. I’m a nurse. We’re taking him to a hospital.”

  The woman blinked, then nodded frantically. “This way. Stay with the crowd. Medical staff are ahead if you need them. Elevator to the right.”

  I almost collapsed in relief. Elevator. We veered in that direction. The line for the elevator was long. Mom ignored it and marched straight to the front.

  “Burn victim! We need to get him to the hospital!”

  Someone protested, but then they saw Syrin and backed off.

  We made it to the top. I looked down at the stream of people moving like a river below, then back at the platform we were one. The bridge to the main path seemed impossibly long. Syrin’s weight felt like it would tug me into the ground.

  I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t carry him all the way. I wanted to, but I was already so tired and…

  “Trina,” Mom’s voice cut sharply into my thoughts. “Just keep walking, alright?”

  I shuddered but nodded. Halfway across the bridge, a golf cart with an employee and two elderly patrons rolled up behind us. “Hey! He injured?” the employee called.

  Mom nodded and explained the situation as I tried not to melt into the floor with relief. Mom helped me maneuver Syrin, and I loaded into the back with him, keeping a tight hold just to keep him upright. The older woman sharing the back bench just watched the two of us with concern.

  “He alright, honey?”

  “He just fainted,” I said when my breath had steadied again. “Needs medical attention, but he’ll be okay.”

  He had to be. I wouldn’t accept any other outcome at this point.

  The golf cart started on its way, and Mom walked along beside us. The cart couldn’t move that quickly anyway with the crowd of people all streaming toward the entrance.

  The walkway widened as we reached the entrance. People streamed past the flamingo pond in churning masses, shouting into phones or dragging crying toddlers. Somewhere behind us, a siren grew louder.

  When the gate was in sight, the area became too crowded, and the golf cart could barely inch forward. “We’ll take him from here,” Mom ordered.

  The golf cart stopped, and Mom helped me drag Syrin off the cart and towards the entrance. Emergency personnel had arrived.

  “Hurry,” Mom murmured.

  The PA system crackled overhead: “Attention visitors—please proceed to the main entrance in an orderly fashion—do not approach the Forest Loop—emergency personnel are now entering the zoo—”

  Orderly. Right. Sure.

  The crowd surged as the walkway funneled toward the exit gates. The compression of bodies made it harder to drag Syrin. My arms burned, my back screamed, but I held on.

  Mom saw me struggling and shifted more of his weight onto herself. “Almost there, Trina. You can do this.”

  I swallowed hard and nodded.

  A paramedic spotted us. “You!” he called. “Bring him over. We can take him—”

  Mom didn’t break stride. “He’s breathing and stable! I’m a nurse; we’ll get him to the hospital. Others were burned worse. We should reserve the ambulance for them.”

  “We really should—” he began, but then a panicked employee arrived, frantically describing burns and concussions.

  Mom dragged us to the side, pausing behind a large sign map of the zoo. When the paramedic looked back, we had disappeared from his line of sight. He looked around frantically for a few seconds, then finally rushed to follow the employee.

  We pushed through the final bottleneck of people and burst into the parking lot. It was an ocean of cars and families scrambling to load kids into vehicles.

  Our car sat three rows down. Three rows might as well have been miles.

  “Almost there,” Mom panted.

  We shuffled between cars, nearly dropping Syrin twice when someone accidentally bumped us. I hissed at them; they apologized without slowing.

  Finally, we reached the car. Mom yanked open the door. Together we maneuvered Syrin inside, lowering him across the back seat.

  “Sit in the back with him,” Mom ordered. “We need to make sure he stays stable.”

  I sprinted around to the other side as Mom helped me maneuver Syrin. His head hit my lap as if it had always belonged there.

  Mom slammed the door, rushed around to the driver’s side, and climbed in.

  She turned the key. The engine roared. Doors slammed across the lot as other families scrambled to leave. A zoo employee tried to wave cars in a controlled pattern toward the exit, but the parking lot was dissolving into barely contained chaos.

  Mom’s jaw was tight as we pulled into the traffic to wait, her eyes scanning every mirror.

  I brushed my fingers across Syrin’s temple and through his hair, but he didn’t stir, not even a twitch.

  For a second, my panic rose, but then his ribcage expanded against my leg. Breathing. He was still breathing. It was fine. It would all be fine.

  I repeated the words in my head. Mom’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “Seatbelts,” she said, voice tight. “If it seems like his magic is going to flare, tell me.”

  We rolled toward the parking lot exit as the zoo behind us erupted with sirens. We didn’t look back. I kept one hand on Syrin’s chest, counting every rise and fall, terrified of what I wouldn’t feel next time.

  It was a very long drive home.