The liquid turned the green grass into a black, burning mess. It bubbled and burned the inside of Aye's nose. It seemed much stronger than the smell that had been in the room before. It smelled poisonous.

When Aye grabbed Marigold's burnt arm, Marigold shrieked loudly and threw herself away from the wick child. It was only then Aye noticed the blisters that were forming on Marigold's arm, and her own fingers from where she'd touched the key. Aye's hand burned intensely, and it felt painful to even move her fingers. It was the most painful thing Aye had ever felt in her life. It felt like somebody was both melting, and boiling her skin at the same time.

The other girl was sobbing heavily and the fire was crawling towards them even though it was raining. Marigold didn't seem to notice the fire. She was in too much pain.

She hadn’t expected Marigold to run like that, but she could now see why she had. The poor girl had horrible blisters all up her arm, it was sickening to see. Had that come from the jar? Aye gasped and looked down at her own hand, and as soon as she saw the blisters the pain hit. It felt like a knife going through her palm, it felt like getting bitten by a snake. It felt like some awful beast with sharp teeth was gnawing on her hand, jaw moving in a slow side to side motion similar to a cow. A crazy, murderous, hand eating cow.

She cried out and sucked a sharp breath in through her teeth. What was that stuff?! More tears fell from her eyes and she bit into her lip. This pain was going to make it hard to get away from the fire. Aye couldn’t even imagine the pain Marigold was in.

From past experiences Aye knew that one pain could lessen another, once a tribe member had a fierce toothache, and he wouldn’t let anyone touch it to help. It had bothered him and driven him crazy for days, until finally he had had enough. The man had taken a rock and smashed his fingers, not badly, but badly enough to hurt. Afterward he said the tooth didn’t even hurt anymore, so he let the healers pull it out. It hadn’t made sense to Aye, why hadn’t he just let them fix the tooth? But now she was glad she remembered it.

If she were to smash her other hand with a rock, she would feel less of the burn. She didn’t want to, but that hand was all she could think about. If she didn’t distract herself from it, her and Marigold would both die out here. The girl looked around for a large enough rock, and forced herself to grab onto it with her burned hand. She winced at the pain, and frowned at her good hand. She would have to be careful not to break it; she would need to use it if she was going to get Marigold out of here.

Aye placed her good hand on the ground, gripped the rock as tightly as she could in her burned hand, and gritted her teeth. Slowly the burned hand raised itself over her good hand, and the little wick girl took a moment to breathe, before bringing the rock down on her good hand hard enough to make it hurt. Badly.

She flinched, and maybe that was the only thing that saved her hand from being permanently broken. She did manage to smash three of her fingers. It didn't help the pain, as she thought it would, it made it even more unbearable. Now both of her hands hurt like crazy. She could feel her fingers throbbing, and the burn on her other hand hurt even more.

Marigold, meanwhile, seemed to have regained some of her former will. Her arm seemed to be becoming quickly disfigured, and the rain was bringing little relief. As the heat from the fire behind her reached her back she reacted. She jack knifed up and ran forward as if the devil was on her heals. Her uninjured hand closed in around Aye's wrist, vicelike in how hard it was gripping.

Aye couldn't get away, and she didn't know where they were going, but Marigold seemed to have a purpose.

She yelled when the rock hit her hand, and drew a breath in through her teeth. That had hurt! And not only had it hurt, it hand distracted her from her other hand. She whined and held the burned hand to her chest, bringing the smashed hand up to examine it. She didn’t exactly know how bad it was, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

When the other girl grabbed the smashed hand's writ, she yelped out of surprise, and ran to keep up. Where were they going? Why did she have to go so faaaasssst? Why was she holding her hand so tightly? Aye breathed hard and tried not to shake her burned hand too much, as she ran to keep up, her tripping now and then wasn’t helping.

"W-where, where're we goin'?" she asked in a yell. She didn’t know how loud she was, the pain was in her ears making every sound seem whispered, and in her eyes clouding up the road and blurring her vision, and everywhere else making her stumble or slip; she was having trouble controlling the volume of her voice, and any other bodily function, even her thoughts were filled with pain.

"Where we shoulda gone soon as we saw those fookin' jars!" Marigold shouted. She seemed to be feeling a little better. The cold wind, icy rain water and river run streets were helping. The water was letting her think about something else.

She was leading them straight to Shook's Apothecary.

The water in the street's was above aye's knees. She had a hard time keeping her footing, and they were going very slowly.