Phoenix and Ashes

"Smith and I encountered them clawing at the shields around the grounds last night as we came in," Lady Virginia continued ruthlessly. "We dispelled them of course. But if you had been properly doing your job instead of relying on your late father's defenses—which are eroding, may I add—you would have known they were there and done something about them weeks ago."

"But—" His head was whirling at this point.

"But me no buts. I will accept no excuses. Think, will you?" she demanded. "There are surely at least a handful of sensitives down in that village of yours, if not a real practitioner. What if one of them had been caught by the revenants instead of Smith and me?"

"I'll build better shields," he said grimly, getting his metaphorical feet under him again. "I'll put myself behind magical walls too thick for anything to sense me or find me, and I won't attract any more trouble—"

"Reginald David Alexander Tiberius Fenyx, you have tried that, and it did not work!" Lady Virginia exploded, losing her temper as she had seldom ever done in his presence. He shrank back involuntarily, as she slapped the table three times with an open palm, emphasizing her last three words. "By the Archangel Raphael, I swear, if your father was alive to hear this, he would—well, I don't know what he would do, but I know what he would be, and that is bitterly disappointed! I expect the idiots in the War Office to fail to learn from their mistakes, but I thought better of you!"

"But—" he protested feebly.

"You were behind shields—your own and your father's—and those revenants still found you! And I cannot for the life of me imagine what you could have done that would attract the attention of a renegade Druid, a couple of Roman-British louts in armor, an assortment of Regency highwaymen, and a spread of nasty cutthroats stretching back to hide-wearing henge-builders! Now what about that makes you suspicious?" She stared at him, demanding that he think.

And he did, though he didn't want to admit what he was thinking. "They were sent?"

She sniffed. "Better. I was beginning to wonder if you had left some of your wits back there on the Front. Yes, they were sent. I do not know by whom, or why, but they were certainly carefully called up, invoked, bound, and sent. Probably Beltane Night, which would account for your disturbed sleep since then. And with them dispelled, which their master will most certainly know, the next things that are purposed to attack you will be stronger."

He just stared at her numbly. He couldn't for the life of him imagine why anyone would set revenants on him.

"It doesn't actually matter who did this, or why," Lady Virginia continued. "The point is that renouncing magic is not going to make this person go away. I don't believe that whoever this is has any plans to leave you alone until you are dead or mad."

Her eyes glittered at him; he hadn't truly understood how hard she could be when she felt the need. At that moment, it came home to him that she had been an Air Master—a combative magician, on a Front of her own—for most of her life. She was as mentally tough as any soldier, if not more so. She might not have been a part of the Council, but he knew quite well that she was part of some other White Lodge, and had been just as active as any of Alderscroft's Masters.

Perhaps the only difference between her and those now in the trenches was that her experience of combat had not left her disillusioned and bitter.

"Nor are you my primary concern at this moment," she said, stabbing her finger down at the tablecloth for emphasis. "You might be able to protect yourself behind your shields and your walls. But what about others? What about the sensitives down in your village? Can they? When whoever this is levels barrage after barrage of magical attacks against you, who do you think is going to pay the price as those attacks reflect off your defenses?"

He gulped. "I hadn't—"

But in his mind's eye, he saw the shattered remains of the villages of Belgium and France, wreckage that proved it didn't matter how innocent you were, once you were in the way.

He dropped his gaze to his own hands. They were shaking. "Did you see or sense anything that might give you an idea who was behind the attack?" he asked, instead, trying to put off the moment of decision for a little while longer.

"All that I sensed was a momentary hint of someone—a Fire magician, I thought, half-trained at best. It wasn't there for long, and I don't believe the Fire magician had anything to do with the revenants, I think it was just someone caught up accidentally. Possibly one of your sensitive villagers or someone dreaming and coming to investigate the flares of power; the aura suggested someone walking in an astral projection." He looked up at that, but she shook her head at him. "And at any rate, revenants are far more likely to be sent by an Earth magician. They don't respond well to Fire."