Rushing to the floor, Arabella didn't hesitate even for a heartbeat. Her skirts tangled at her knees, her breath caught in her throat, yet her hands moved with desperate precision. She drew a circle upon the cold floor as swift as a dove and flung salt along its edges as she whispered an incantation beneath her breath. Each word left her lips like smoke, faint but haunting.
At the end of her spell, she tipped the candle, letting molten wax drip into the circle's heart. A hiss — the sound that one would hear when burning something so badly in a kitchen — and it broke through the air. From the corners of the room came the sound of sizzling, and when she turned, the walls themselves seemed to blister and weep.
"Grab what's burnt," she ordered, her voice cutting through the mounting heat.
