I took another step back from the window, heart thudding and then everything inside me went utterly still. A reddish glow hurtled toward me. I didn't have time to scream before a powerful arm looped around my waist and yanked me to the side. In the blink of an eye, the window shattered with a violent crash, glass spraying like shrapnel. Where I had just stood, a burning arrow was now lodged in the wooden floor, hissing and crackling as flames licked outward in a slow, deliberate crawl.

I ...