Lyra’s POV
Smoke woke me before the heat did.
I bolted upright, coughing, my eyes streaming as thick gray smoke curled along the ceiling of my chambers, orange light flickering at the edges of my vision where it had no business being.
"Fire." The word tore out of me hoarse and disbelieving, even as my body scrambled off the bed on pure instinct. "Fire!"
The far wall was already fully ablaze, flames climbing hungrily toward the wooden beams overhead, faster than any ordinary fire had any right to spread. Panic clawed up my throat alongside the smoke, some distant, rational part of my mind noting that stone walls didn't simply combust, that fires this size didn't grow from nothing in the span of a single sleeping breath.
I stumbled toward the door, smoke thickening with every step, lung
