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Halfway along the street, one swinging board, advertises the bakery of Thomas Farrona.

Like most of the shops of pudding lane, his is a three-story building. It's made of timber

and panels of whottle and dorp, a lattice of wooden strips overlaid with clay and straw.

And, as in the other shops, Farrona and his family are asleep in the bedrooms upstairs.

Suddenly, he is woken by his son, who runs into the room shouting.

It's then that Farrona smells it. The scent everyone in this city dreads even more than the raw sewage

and awful in the gutters. It's the smell of burning.

As his son runs to wake his daughter and the maid, Farrona leaps from his bed.

He rushes onto the landing to find thick black smoke rolling across the ceiling,

a glow flickers under a door at the foot of the stairs.

He tries to go down, but it's already too hot.

With a crack, the door below leans out, followed by flames that lick the ceiling.

Farrona's forehead prickles with sweat.

He retreats, nearly colliding with his daughter, followed by their maid, still dressed in their long nightgowns.

They're safe, but not for long.

There's a crash from downstairs, and the whole building shudders.

...