Phoenix and Ashes

"I did come to the ball with you," Locke pointed out meekly. "And it would only be hospitable to offer a place for me for the night, after such a late return."

"Do you think Reggie will come looking for her here?" Lauralee asked suddenly, turning back to look down at them with an expression of worry.

What with everything else that was going wrong—probably. "He might," Alison replied. "And we need to be prepared for that." She thought about it for a moment. "Our best bet may be to try and convince him that the girl he met was not Eleanor, but—Lauralee."

"Lauralee!" Carolyn exclaimed angrily, jealousy sharpening her tone. "Why Lauralee?"

"She's the nearest in size, he didn't set eyes on her once all evening, and the difference in hair-color can be explained with a wig," Alison replied, consigning Carolyn's hopes to the dustbin without a twinge. "Whereas you, dear, he danced with twice, so he knows very well that you weren't in the fairy princess costume. He can't possibly have known who Eleanor is; when would he ever have met her? It might work, and if it does, we'll have saved the situation. You can explain running away somehow. I leave it up to you to think of something."

"I will," Lauralee promised, and she turned to go back up the stairs. Her sister led the way, bristling and pouting at the same time.

"That one's going to be trouble," Locke warned. "She's going to let jealousy of her sister take precedence over everything else."

Alison sniffed. "She's the least of my worries. She'll behave herself now because this situation will fall to pieces if we don't all work together. And she'll behave herself later—because she knows what will happen if she doesn't."

"Oh?" Locke replied, looking skeptical.

She dropped the mask she habitually wore and let him see the true Alison Robinson, just for a moment. He shrank back, as she reinforced the revelation with her next words.

"I only need one daughter," she said, icily. "And I periodically remind them of that." She smiled as he nodded, trembling, and all but scrambled up the stairs to a guest room.

August 12, 1917

Elsewhere

At one moment, Eleanor had been surrounded by the last people on earth she wanted to see. She had started to get up, but Warrick Locke had pounced on her with a rag in one hand. He had covered her nose and mouth with it; she had been forced to breathe through it, tasting a sickly-sweet, unbearably thick aroma, and the next thing she knew she had been thrust into blackness. She seemed to fall forever, then there was a kind of electric jolt—

Now, she was here. The Tarot-world, with its flat, blue sky and its flat, green lawns. But this was a part of it she had never seen before.

She stood inside a square of grass that was surrounded by hedges whose tops were well above her head. It all looked very measured and regular; too regular to be real.

"Where am I?" she said aloud, though she really only thought she was talking to herself.

But she wasn't alone. She heard something behind her, and turned. "You are in the center of a maze," said the Hermit, pushing back his cowl and setting his lantern down. He frowned, but at the hedges, not at her, his bushy gray brows knitting together. "You are in great danger; this is merely a reflection in this world of another reality that surrounds you."

At the moment, she didn't care what the maze was for. "I know I don't belong here," she said urgently. "And I know I'm in danger—but I didn't come here by myself, and I don't know how to get out! Is there any way you can help me?"

He looked directly into her eyes, and she saw a personality there— something she had not ever really seen with any of the other Tarot cards. "The Perfect Fool asks the unasked questions—" he said aloud. Then he changed.

He became—Fire. Fire incarnate. A sexless creature of insubstantial flame, gazing at her with penetrating blue eyes, eyes the color of a hot gas flame. His voice remained the same, however.

"I think we can dispense with this, child," he said, and with a casual gesture, the maze, the flat blue sky, the flat green earth, were all gone. In their place—a world of fire, fire which not only did not burn her, but which, when it touched her, felt like a cool caress. "You are not a Master, not yet—I am not compelled to obey you, nor required by mutual bargain."

She shook her head. "I know that," she replied, swallowing. "And I know I'll be studying all my life to really understand my powers. I was foolish to think I could Master all the cards in a few days, but—but I think I could have gotten enough to have broken free of Alison."

"You are in great danger," the Fire Elemental repeated. "And the maze we were in is nothing to the maze that holds you tight in tangles of magic."

"Yes I am," she agreed, shivering. "I don't think I can escape from this by myself. I need help. Will you, can you help me?"

"That depends," the Elemental said, measuringly. "You must show by your intelligence that you deserve help."