"Okay, I think there isn't anyone else at the house right now. I will start casting."

By now, the Starrs are familiar enough with the protocol around ritual casting, they move further away from the door, no interruptions, don't distract the caster.

Topher runs up to them. No Aaron. He pauses upon seeing the two and the ritual casting and steps towards the door.

The fire kept growing - it's at fifteen feet now and still getting larger. Alex is still curled up in the center, a just-visible shadow in the flames. 

He manifests his cold aura, it's not quite a wind, but it pushes outwards against the fire. Ice crystals form all over Topher and the floor beneath him freezes. He manages to approach Alexei, but not quite touch him yet. "Alex! Can you hear me?!"

Sawney finishes casting the fireward. "Done."

Alex doesn't respond. At least he's stopped screaming, though. 

And Jamie dashes into the room after Topher. He stops at his shoulder, taking in the scene, and then grimaces, "Can you- calm him, somehow?" He asks. "Normally I'd just talk to him, but... we need to snap him out of this quickly, and that would take too long." 

"Pushing calming memories might help. Can you use you wind to push away the flames? My cold is not intense enough to let me touch him."

"Okay. I can do that, yeah," he does that, the addition of his wind control to Topher's cold leaving a clear path to Alex. 

Topher touches Alexei with an ice-covered hand, ignoring the sudden temperature change, he starts copying calming memories into Alexei's minds.

He starts with a sunny afternoon in a grassy field near the house. But then changes his mind and decides warmth might not be a good trigger. The next memory is him at cabin's porch, looking the snowy mountains below. Then a memory of his stepmother reading something for him when he was eight, Topher's head in her lap.

He flinches at the touch, curling in tighter and releasing a half-sob- but the memories hit pretty quickly. 

Actually, the first memory goes over just fine. Wide-open sunny fields are nothing like the place he's been pulled to by his own associations. The second and third are good, too, though, the memory of the chill air, the feeling of hands in his hair and a soothing voice (he has no memory that is quite comparable to that one). 

He relaxes, a bit. 

Jamie approaches cautiously, circling around to settle down opposite Topher. He doesn't touch him, yet - Topher doing it is unavoidable, but another person doing it won't help - just leans in and starts murmuring softly to him, basic facts and reminders - where he is, what he was doing, "He's in prison, I'm here, we're safe." 

It takes time, but eventually the fire has petered out, and Alex is breathing calmly and responding to yes-or-no questions, at least, with a nod or a shake of the head. He gets more lucid bit by bit, the memories and Jamie's voice briging him back to the present moment.

Aaron, Sawney and Franklyn, hovers around the room's door. Possibly preparing in case things turn south.

Topher keeps sending more relaxing and calming visions, or simply beautiful sights, the sound of bird, at some point he even send a memory of a joke that made hard loud enough for a teacher to complain (the teacher part being excluded).

His mouth twitches at the last one, and he shifts, slowly uncurling from his ball and blinking around at the room. 

"-Oh-" he coughs, his voice a bit raspy, but he pushes through, "-Aaron?"

"I am fine!" He says from the door, trying to inject levity in the situation.

He is also hiding the parts where he has been scorched, by only leaning into door frame, only showing his head and shoulder.

"How are you?"

His gaze goes to the doorway, relaxing when he sees Aaron there - good, at least there's that -

"...Exhausted," he says in answer to Franklyn's question.

Jamie shifts, "Touch?" He asks, seeking permission. At Alex's nod, he moves, pressing up against his side, reaching up to brush at his forehead. He glances uncertainly at Topher, and then presses a kiss to Alex's hair - a little less obvious, even if the Graywards know, in theory...

Topher, Does Not React To The Kiss, though he is accessing the room's damage and freezing things around the scorched area just to be sure.

He tugs Jamie into his arms, pressing his nose into his hair and just breathing for a minute. It's not hard to remind himself of where he is like this. 

After a bit, he pulls away some, looking over at the door, "I... sorry. I didn't expect..." that. He looks between Aaron and Sawney, "You're not hurt, really?" 

"Well..." he steps into the room and shows the burns in his arms - there is some kind of purple cream applied to them - and there are some other stray burns including another nasty one around Aaron's left ribs. "The real pain is going to be when Morghan finds out that I went to grab Franklyn before treating them."

He flinches on seeing them, "Shit," he breathes. "Shit, I-" he shakes his head, leaning into Jamie for a moment.

"I'm sorry." He swallows, "I didn't know that would happen. How do I stop that from happening again?" 

"We could ward you so you can't produce fire?"