Chapter 14 · free to read
A shaped fire eats what it is drawn around. So I stopped trying to put fires out, and started drawing.
Twelve of her fifteen letters I could not reach. Three I could. Three strokes is not a word. But it was handwriting, and for once it was mine.
Eleven buildings burned. Nobody died in any of them. And in the morning light the city read, across four districts, half a stroke of an answer from a man who had never once written back.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.