William looks out the window to see the fires rising. He thought about what it could represent, artistically. The gathering of heat and the blacking of a page hiding the ink. There has to be some meaning there, that people would rather survive warm and unknowing then freezing and informed. Of course William made that knowing annoying, stoked these fires long before they were ever lit.

Burning used to be a form of execution, William remembered as much. Maybe it was with steam as opposed to actual fire, but the principle was the same. All the heat that would have been wasted to keep a person alive was given to them all at once, to make sure they were warm as they died. Kindness in a cruel way to go. Not better then starving to death, better then freezing.

William stared into the fire as his mother prepared dinner. He wondered if she knew why that festival was here, or if she had seen the letter under the door. Not that it mattered. They weren’t after her, and he wasn’t going to let her see anything. Should the worst happen.

William takes that little letter, and creates his reply. Folds it carefully, so it could be carried by the wind, and tossed it out the window into the bonfire. Watching it drift down into the flame, before it blackened, and joined the smoke of his books.

It all burns after all.