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When Barnabos says “Mr. Fireblossom” and even that causes boiling fear down Jornir’s spine, he understands how deep this magic is.
They have to put light in the lighthouse. It’s a logical and magically sound course of action. The thought does something to his heart not unlike being dashed against the rocks in the sea, but they must.
Queenie says, “I think we fill up the main area with fuel and we open one of those windows there,” and she looks at Taishen, “and you light one of my arrows on fire and I send it flyin’ in.”
“That’s a better idea. I was going to suggest one of us sacrifice ourselves heroically. I like your idea much better.”
Jornir watches Barnabos glance furtively at Taishen and feels simultaneous waves of pride and rage. Had a sacrifice been necessary, Jornir feels no doubt that sweet, kind, compassionate Taishen would be the first to volunteer, nevermind his little niece, nevermind the decades he has left to live. He would climb those stairs alone and send a solitary wish to Fu Zhao (and how dare the great dragon give him fire, when this is what he would be reduced to using it for—escape and destruction as of late, no warmth, no comfort, nothing within his nature) and close his gemstone eyes, set the lighthouse ablaze, and die amid his own magic. Of course he would. Taishen is a caregiver whose growing courage is pushing away his self-preservation. Jornir exhales and does not tremble. They have work to do.
Jornir lugs barrels of fuel up the spiral staircase to the top of the lighthouse, one under each arm, and tries to walk behind Queenie and Skrimm when he can to catch them if they should stumble. They don’t. The barren room where a light should be is crammed with barrels and slicked in oil. The pool of quicksilver shimmers with unknowable memory. Jornir makes the decision to ignore it.
Ice has gripped all of them, it would seem, his friends walking on leaden feet with blank terror on their faces, but they keep moving one and all. They gather outside and Jornir puts himself in the back, between them and the approaching figure which he will deal with when it presents a problem and no sooner, and watches Queenie nock an arrow.
“I know you’re scared.”
Taishen summons enthusiasm from somewhere in his wonderful heart. “On your count, Queenie!”
Queenie, who has never been fooled by anyone’s displays of false confidence but is usually too kind to point it out, says, “I’m just as scared as you are. You can do this, alright?”
Taishen holds firm but only barely. “I’m ready!”
“One… two… light it on fire, go.”
Taishen closes his delicate claws around thin air and creates a spark like he’s caught a stray mote of pure magic, and Jornir watches him flinch at his own hand just as all of them do.
A wheezing groan. The figure in the cloak has found them but Queenie is brave and stubborn and centered, and she raises her bow and lets her arrow fly, flickering at the tip with Taishen’s horrifying, beautiful power.
It sails in a perfect arc into the top of the lighthouse. There is only darkness for a moment, a breath of relief, of disappointment, but then in one smooth motion the entire room explodes in light and heat, blasting out the windowpanes and making Jornir’s heart freeze over with fear, but he knows that in a faraway place and a different time, he looked at Taishen’s fires and felt something that was not fear at all.