ELARA'S POV
December arrived and with it the particular quality of the city preparing for winter.
Seattle did Christmas without the theatrical snow of other cities, just the cold and the lights and the shortened days and the specific smell of the season that arrived in the first week of December like it had been waiting just offstage.
I noticed it on a Monday morning walking to the gallery. The air different. The light different. The city doing something to itself that it only did once a year.
I texted Damien from the street: *It smells like December.*
He replied in four minutes: *First fire tonight.*
I put my phone away and walked the rest of the way to the gallery with the uncomplicated happiness of someone whose life contained small reliable things.
The first fire was a ritual we
