Phoenix and Ashes

The revenants were—literally—being shredded, by the winds that spun cyclone-like in a vortex, with the old woman at their still heart. There was a clean, blue glow about the old woman and her helper now. And though the revenants huddled howling together, trying to hide themselves, nothing they did was any protection against the power that was ripping them apart, as if they were nothing but tissue-paper, and whirling the tiny pieces upwards in a reverse snowfall of glowing bits.

Eleanor looked up, involuntarily, to see that the bits were being carried up into a bottomless black hole in the sky, rimmed with glowing blue.

And yet—and there was the strangest thing of all—so far as the trees and the rest of the "real world" was concerned, there were no winds. The leaves rustled only a little; the grasses scarcely moved at all. There was no sound but the keening wail of the revenants themselves.

The hair went up on the back of Eleanor's neck, even as she clung even tighter to the tree-trunk.

Or was she clinging to the trunk? There seemed to be two trees there, a kind of faintly luminescent shadow-tree, which was tossing its branches in the tempest, and the "real" tree, which was undisturbed— and her arms were wrapped tightly around the former, not the latter.

A thin cry of despair arose from the revenants, and if they had been hideous before, now, with half of their substance eaten away by the terrible cyclone, they were horrible to look at. They tried to snatch at the bits of themselves being ripped off and blown away, only to see their fingers, bits of their hands, torn off too. Eleanor felt herself sickening, and couldn't help herself; she couldn't bear the sight any longer. She squeezed her eyes shut, and tried to will herself awake, for surely this was a dream. It must be a dream. She would make it a dream—

Oh please, let this just be a nightmare, don't let it be real . . .

And with a start, and a jolting she felt in her heart, she did awaken.

She was in her own bed, crickets singing outside her window. Her heart pounded so hard she thought the bed might be shaking with the force of it, and she was terribly, terribly cold.

And a moment later, she began to shiver so violently that the bed did start shaking after all.

She tried to move, and couldn't, and her shivering grew worse. It was as if the cold itself held her prisoner, in bonds of ice. She had never been so cold; her teeth chattered with it, and her fingers and toes were numb with it, and she wanted a blanket desperately. But before she could make a second attempt to lurch out of bed to get one, something else came to her rescue.

Flowing out of the brickwork of the chimney came her Salamanders, three of them. They raced across the floor and slithered up into the bed, where one coiled itself against the small of her back, one wrapped itself around her shoulders, and one curled up just at the hollow of her stomach. Warmth spread from them, driving the numbing cold out of her, and after a moment, her shivering stopped and she began to relax.

As soon as she began to feel warm again, exhaustion hit her, as if she had been working beyond her strength. And when the last of remnants of her fear ebbed away, replaced by a weary lassitude, she gave in to it, and let sleep claim her again.

This time carefully not thinking of any questions, nor the Tarot. She'd had enough lessons for one night.

June 22, 1917

Longacre Park, Warwickshire

The card party that had begun so tediously had ended last night as a different sort of party altogether. Reggie could not have been more grateful. His aunt's good friend—and his own godmother—Lady Virginia de Marce had turned up, in her own motorcar, with her chauffeur and (though only he and his aunt knew this) arcane assistant Smith in attendance. Smith had efficiently organized the servants and gotten the formidable pile of Lady Virginia's belongings upstairs, while her ladyship tidied herself and returned to take control of the company.

Her ladyship could not help but take control of whatever company she was in. She had an air about her of absolute authority, she dressed like a queen, in her own unique style, based roughly on the enormous hats, trumpet-skirts and high-necked gowns of twenty years before, which somehow made her look tunelessly fashionable rather than outdated.

While every powerful Master that Reggie had ever met tended to exude that aura of authority, Lady Virginia had honed hers into a weapon. When she entered a room, she took charge of it and everyone in it.

With Smith's help, she had come downstairs again in less than a third of the time it would have taken any other woman, changed miraculously from her duster, goggles, veiled hat and traveling-ensemble to an exquisite gown of mauve lace. Smith, be it said, was also Lady Virginia's lady's maid—because Smith, chauffeur, arcane assistant, was a woman.