Lillian is expelled from Iron Mountain Girls School after taking the blame for Madison's drug possession.

Lillian receives a letter from Madison Roberts inviting her to visit and enclosing money for a job opportunity.

Lillian arrives at the sprawling Roberts estate outside Nashville and reunites with Madison for the first time in years.

Madison reveals that Jasper's twin children from a previous marriage spontaneously catch on fire when emotionally overwhelmed.

Lillian agrees to spend the summer as full-time live-in governess for Jasper's twin children Bessie and Roland.

Carl drives Lillian to the Cunningham grandparents' home to collect ten-year-old twins Bessie and Roland.

Bessie bites Lillian's arm and drags her into the pool in a violent attempt to escape with Roland.

The twins erupt in flames upon seeing Jasper at the estate; Lillian smothers the fire with a muumuu.

Jasper agrees to keep the twins at the estate after Madison appeals to his family values political image.

Lillian begins daily yoga and breathing sessions with Bessie and Roland to help them manage their emotions and fires.

Madison reveals plans to send Bessie and Roland to a European boarding school once Jasper's confirmation is secured.

Timothy bursts into flames during Jasper's nationally televised secretary of state confirmation press conference.

Jasper announces plans to send Bessie and Roland to a troubled children's school and Timothy to a Montana facility.

Jasper shoves Lillian through a glass table; the twins set the mansion on fire and escape with Lillian.

Madison arranges legal guardianship of Bessie and Roland for Lillian, with Jasper providing financial support.

Lillian, a scholarship student expelled from an elite school for covering up Madison's drug use, is invited back into Madison's orbit years later with a mysterious job offer. She arrives at the Roberts estate and discovers that Jasper's twin children, Bessie and Roland, spontaneously catch on fire — a secret that must be kept during his secretary of state vetting. After a chaotic first meeting with the twins, Lillian works to earn their trust while managing their dangerous condition through breathing exercises and daily routines. The summer comes to a crisis when Jasper's own young son Timothy erupts in flames on live television during the nationally broadcast confirmation press conference. When Jasper attempts to institutionalize all three fire children, the twins retaliate by burning part of the family mansion, and Lillian escapes with them. The novel ends with Madison arranging for Lillian to become Bessie and Roland's legal guardian, giving Lillian the family she never had.

The headline events that drive the story from beginning to end.

Mr. Billings offers Lillian's mother $10,000 to let Lillian take the blame for Madison's drug possession at a private dinner.

Lillian telephones her mother to say she will not be returning home from the Roberts estate.

Carl shows Lillian a closet stocked with fire extinguishers during a walkthrough of the guesthouse.

Madison takes Lillian shopping at a Billings family store and instructs her to build an entirely new wardrobe.

After arriving at the estate, Bessie and Roland spend three days eating soggy sandwiches and swimming in the pool.

Bessie and Roland go missing; Lillian searches in a panic and finds them standing at the edge of the woods.

A math lesson leads to Bessie's emotional breakdown; Lillian wraps her in a wet towel to prevent a fire.

Madison sneaks over to the guesthouse to invite Lillian for drinks and snacks on the mansion patio.

Lillian introduces Bessie and Roland to basketball on the Roberts estate court for the first time.

Madison deliberately elbows Lillian in the face during their basketball match, leaving Lillian with a black eye.

Lillian takes the twins on their first public outing to the library, with everyone coated in flame retardant stunt gel.

Lillian and the twins tour the empty Roberts mansion in Nomex suits while the family is away in Washington.

A retired doctor examines the twins and offers both dietary suggestions and paranormal theories about their condition.

Mary tells Lillian she has witnessed fire incidents at the estate before and was quietly paid by Jasper to stay silent.

Lillian arrives at her childhood home with the twins, and her mother allows the three of them inside.

Before Lillian ever meets the twins, the machinery of wealth and manipulation is established when Madison's father secretly pays off Lillian's mother to let her daughter take the blame for a crime she didn't commit. At the estate, Lillian is gradually absorbed into a world of luxury and secrecy — shopping, touring the grounds, and adjusting to the Roberts' way of doing things. The twins arrive wild and traumatized, and the early days are spent simply surviving together: eating, swimming, and slowly building fragile trust in the safety of the guesthouse. Lillian devises practical strategies for managing the fires, from stunt gel to library outings, while navigating setbacks like a bruising basketball match with Madison and a deeply strange visit to a paranoid retired doctor. By the end of the summer, the world outside has caught up with them, and Lillian finds herself fleeing back to the only place she knows. These secondary moments reveal how much care, creativity, and stubbornness it takes to hold a small found family together.

The secondary moments that build the world and its relationships.

Madison and Lillian spend their last night together at Iron Mountain, with Madison whispering that Lillian is her best friend.

Lillian meets Madison's son Timothy at breakfast and finds his robotic stillness and oversized eyes unnervingly strange.

Lillian convinces a hostile Bessie to trust her by promising to care for her and Roland and never leave them.

Bessie and Roland explain to Lillian that their fires are triggered by overwhelming emotions, especially fear and grief.

Believing Lillian is asleep, the twins whisper to each other that their strange new caretaker might be okay.

Bessie and Roland overhear Carl and Lillian discussing medication for the fires and fiercely refuse to take any pills.

Bessie confides that her mother died of a drug overdose after arranging a suicide pact that included the children.

While watching Bessie and Roland enjoy themselves, Lillian realizes for the first time that she already thinks of them as hers.

Madison admits during a late-night conversation that she knows Lillian loves her but insists they could never be together.

Bessie lights a controlled flame on her arm and calmly extinguishes it with steady breathing, showing she has mastered the fire.

Bessie and Roland erupt in joyful uncontrolled flames while watching their half-brother Timothy catch fire on live television.

National media coverage barely mentions the fire incident at Jasper's press conference, explaining it away as a spark catching a shirt.

Lillian's mother calls Carl overnight to reveal the runaway group's hiding place in exchange for a thousand-dollar bribe.

Madison tells Lillian 'I love you' for the first time during their phone call arranging the children's guardianship.

Lillian tells the twins they will be staying with her permanently, and the three leave together for a nearby basketball court.

The novel's deepest turning points begin long before the summer does, with the charged final night Lillian and Madison share at Iron Mountain — an intimacy that quietly shapes everything that follows. When Lillian meets the twins and the full truth of their condition unfolds, key revelations emerge: the fires are rooted in emotion, the twins carry the trauma of a mother who tried to take them with her in death, and they are carefully watching Lillian to decide whether she can be trusted. Pivotal emotional breakthroughs accumulate as Lillian connects with the children — she quietly claims them as her own, and Bessie learns to start and stop fire by choice, transforming a source of shame into a source of power. The shock of Timothy catching fire on live television forces long-suppressed truths into the open, exposing Jasper's hypocrisy and the cover-up machinery that protects the powerful. By the final chapter, Madison's long-withheld declaration of love and Lillian's decision to claim the twins as her own complete the novel's emotional arc. The story ends with the three of them walking toward something new together.