“You were when you carried me.”

“I dragged you.”

“It felt like carrying.” Owen pointed at the red cape. “My mom says heroes don’t always wear these, but I think you should.”

Lily laughed, then winced and touched her head. The sound frightened Daniel, but the nurse smiled. “That is the first good sound we have heard in this room,” she said.

Over the next two days, cards, flowers, and letters filled the hospital floor. Parents of the children Lily had saved arrived one at a time. Some embraced Daniel.

Others stood silently beside the bed, unable to find words. A single father named Marcus Bell brought his six-year-old twins, Ava and Grace — Lily had led both girls through a smoke-filled hallway by making them grip the back of her basketball jersey.