Saint-Germain shifted to look at the girl. "Give me your hand," he said softly. Sophie put her right hand in his, and immediately a feeling of warmth coursed through her body, wiping out the chill. "Let me tell you what my own teacher taught me about fire." As he was speaking, the count moved his glowing index finger across the girl's palm, following the lines and ridges in the flesh, tracing a pattern on her skin. "My teacher said that there are those who will say that the Magic if Air or Water or even Earth is the most powerful magic of all. They are wrong. The Magic of Fire surpasses all others."
As he was speaking, the air directly in front of them began to glow, then shimmer. As if through a heat haze, Sophie watched the smoke twist and dance with the count's words, creating images, symbols, pictures. She wanted to reach out and touch them, but he remained still. Then the rooftop faded and Paris vanished; the only sound she could hear as Saint-Germain's softly insistent voice, and all she could see were the burning cinders. But as he spoke, images started to form in the fire.
"Fire consumes air. It can heat water into mist and can crack open the earth."
She watched as a volcano spewed molten rock high into the air. Red-black lava and white-hot cinders rained down on a town of mud and stone....
"Fire destroys, but it also creates. A forest needs fire to thrive. Certain seeds depend on it to germinate."
Flames twisted like leaves and Sophie saw a forest blackened and battered, the trees scarred with the evidence of a terrible fire. But at the base of the trees, brilliant green shoots poked through the cinders….
"In past ages, fire warmed the humani, allowed them to survive in harsh climates."
The fire revealed a desolate landscape, rocky and snow-covered, but she could see that the cave-dotted cliff face was lit up with warm yellow-red flames….
There was a sudden crack and a pencil thin finger of flame shot up into the night sky. She craned her neck, following it up, up, up, until it disappeared amongst the stars.
"This is the Magic of Fire."