“Camille!”

It’s insane, actually. Just a few short weeks after my parents died and this is where we are.

I’m about to die too, aren’t I?

Hazel knows who my parents were, what they did, and nobody has any hope of killing Blue. The three of us make up the oldest children in White Orchid, if we ignore Ash… which I don’t really want to do.

It’s the fact that between the four of us — because we are the only real choices Mrs Carter can make — I am the new one. And also the fact that Blue is a lot more robot than human, and Hazel’s nature would cause problems with most execution methods, and Ash has been here for years. There is no way Mrs Carter could send him off.

So there’s my death warrant.

I drag my feet down the stairs, trying to calm myself down a bit. Don’t let them see how terrified you are about all of this… and you’ll be fine.

But when I walk into the kitchen, I smell gas.

Hazel doesn’t say anything, pressing two things into my hand before twisting round to look round at the rest of the room’s occupants. There’s a funny sort of glow around Blue and Ash and whichever ten-year-old they’ve dragged into all of this. Some kind of spell, obviously.

And Hazel’s not actually glowing at all.

She waves her hand close to the burner and then snaps her fingers — giving the rest of us just enough time to spot the tiny flame that sparks on the tip of her index before the world explodes.

I’m not sure what spell she used. But it changes what should be a death sentence into the strangest mix of burning and freezing, before there’s a twist of something deep inside and the air clears.

Blue is the first to speak, given that she’s not half-choking to death like Hazel is, and Ash and the younger boy were apparently not informed of much of the plan either. They seem almost as stunned as I am.

“They’re not going to look for us?”

Hazel shakes her head, presses a hand to her mouth and pulls it away stained awfully red. “N-nope. Don’t think this place still exists, actually…”

“What… was that?”

“Oh, faking our deaths. Didn’t really plan to get so many of us out of there but frankly Hazel’s technically on the run and there’s some kind of destruction order on my head and there’s supposedly reason to believe you three are in similar sorts of danger… yeah.”

I’ve never heard the cyborg talk quite so much.

“So why didn’t you use that funny magic on yourself, Hazel?”

“Oh, haven’t you heard? Witches don’t burn.”

I… can’t quite work out what just took place. Insanity, of course, but… well.

I suppose I’m not dead. Not for a while, at the very least.

I don’t know what I was thinking, honestly…