Phoenix and Ashes

"Reginald," Lady Virginia said, raising her chin a little. "This nonsense of avoiding magic must stop. Now."

She couldn't have been more direct, and she left him with no graceful way out of the conversation. He clenched his teeth, and replied just as directly.

"Lady Virginia—forgive me, but you can't possibly know why I am—"

She did something she had never done before, in all of his acquaintance with her. She interrupted him.

"Actually," she said tartly, "I do know. I know exactly why, in excruciating detail. I have not been idle these three years. I am a VAD— a working VAD, though admittedly, a part-time VAD, since my old bones are hardly up to the long hours the young ones put in, and I have no intention of living in some squalid little dormitory with a pack of girls. I have been spending many long hours at the bedsides of young enlisted men, and I wasn't simply mopping their brows, as you should by now be aware. Furthermore, they talk to me, Reginald. I induce them to talk to me, because it is sometimes the only way to purge them of their horrors."

Reggie felt his eyes widen with shock. It had never occurred to him that aristocratic Lady Virginia would have volunteered to do nursing-aide work. But—she was continuing.

"And as for what happened specifically to you, not only did I get the gist of the experience from Maya, one of my working-class proteges, a clever Earth magician that I sponsored through nurse's training, was privy to some of your experience in the trenches, as you rather unambiguously shared it with whoever was Sensitive at the time."

He stared at her, appalled that he had done any such thing. Granted, he'd been out of his senses but still, "Who?"

Lady Virginia shrugged. "You weren't conscious, so you won't recognize the name. A nurse at the first field-hospital you came to, if you must know; an Earth-worker, as I told you—they can't seem to stay away from pursuing healing at the Front. You nearly gave her a breakdown and she had to come home to me for a month. Fortunately, Maya sorted her out. Unfortunately, Maya does not seem to have been as successful with you."

He blinked at her. There didn't seem to be anything he could say. "I'm sorry about your protegee—" he began.

She waved his apology away. "She knew that she was going to encounter things like that before she volunteered, and the experience has given her better shields. And you could learn from her example. As soon as she could, she was back, using what power she has for the greatest good."

He flushed.

She saw the flush, correctly assumed it was embarrassment, and shook her head. "You mistake me. I am not going to act like your idiotic grandfather and call you a coward, because I know you aren't. That leg of yours can't—according to Doctor Maya—be more than half healed. And I know that you think that you have taken the best steps you can to protect yourself. But Reginald, walling yourself off from magic is not going to solve your problem. In fact, it is only going to make things worse."

Nettled, now, he narrowed his eyes. "I can't see how."

Lady Virginia sighed. "Naturally you can't see how. You haven't looked." She eyed him shrewdly. "You've forgotten that building walls instead of shields blinds you to what is going on around you. I don't suppose you'd have the effrontery to tell me you've been sleeping the sleep of the just lately, would you?"

"Last night—" he began, but she interrupted him again.

"Oh, last night, of course. But what about for the last month?" She stared at him, daring him to lie with her eyes.

And he couldn't. He gave in, feeling his fragile defenses crumple under the pressure of the knowledge she had in her eyes. He didn't know how she knew, but she clearly did. "No. I've gotten no more than a few hours of rest at most over the past few weeks. Most nights are as bad as they were when I was in hospital."

"I'm not surprised," Lady Virginia replied, with satisfaction. "Considering that until last night you had a small army of revenants breathing down your neck. Even walled and shielded, you would have sensed them, and had they gained in power, you would have been at their mercy. Revenants are not subject to the same laws as Elementals, as you should well know, and if they had been able to break through to you, they would have shredded your mind at the least, and possibly worse than that."

That took him completely by surprise. "Revenants? But—"

What could he possibly have done to arouse revenants? And here? There hadn't been a haunt anywhere near Longacre for generations!

But—"haunted" described exactly how he had been feeling for the last month or so.

Revenants! The mere thought made him dizzy. No, revenants were not subject to the same laws as Elementals. They could even make themselves seen and felt by ordinary mortals. Really powerful ones could kill.