Warmth tickles up her spine, and if that isn't enough to bring Astrid's attention around, then maybe the sudden spill of red light does.

Heat and light aren't the only things that fire gives off, though. Smoke will shake off a haze that smogs the open street, its stench as obvious as the way it makes eyes water. The sound, too, an engulfing roar that almost masks the breaking of the building its eating. The fire has only just begun, but it's reaching its peak; Astrid can still see the make of the two floored safehouse-- yes, safehouse, that's the word for it implanted into her mind as if she herself had always thought of it that way-- still standing even as fire begins to devour it from the inside out.

A door opens. A woman with black hair, her ethnicity disguised in ash, bursts out into the street, distraught, choking. She falls to her hands and knees, gets up, staggers.