Phoenix and Ashes

Reggie had been perfectly ready to fall over where the man pointed. By that time his head was perfectly clear, but it ached so much from what he presumed was a blow, and his knee was in such agony, that by the time he realized that he was alone among these ancient stones, it was too late to do anything about it. He could already hear someone coming up the same path. All he could do was feign unconsciousness and wait to see what happened next.

What happened was that Locke dumped someone else practically on top of him. Someone small, and very warm. Eleanor?

He continued to lie quietly as the sound of the others moved off a little. The way he was positioned, he couldn't see anything anyway; his face was turned towards the megalithic stone, and the other person had been dropped behind him.

But he was sure it was Eleanor. It wasn't just the sense that it was her, or instinct. Logic said that was the likeliest—but why? What was Alison planning?

It was nothing good for either of them, but it was Eleanor he was worried about the most. He represented the means to a very large fortune, as well as a kind of life she clearly aspired to. If she got rid of him, she lost her access to that life; Lady Virginia would see to that. No, it made more sense, far more sense, for her to try and work some bedazzlement on his mind, to make him pliant and willing to marry one of her wretched daughters.

It was Eleanor that he was concerned about. He still didn't know how Eleanor factored into all this—except that she was now clearly an obstacle in the path to Alison's goals. He couldn't dismiss the idea that they meant to murder her—after all, who would notice? No one in Broom even gave her existence a second thought now.

Even more chilling was the thought that Alison might murder Eleanor in order to get the power she needed to control him.

And he was patently in no shape to take them on in a straight-on physical contest. He wasn't even sure he could manage a successful escape. The longer this situation dragged on, the less confident he became. And on top of that, as bad as his physical condition already was, he knew it was rapidly deteriorating. Lying here on the ground was making his muscles stiffen, and there was no point in pretending otherwise, he had a concussion that wasn't getting any better either. His head pounded, and though he tried to think through the pain and the nausea, it was getting harder to put two coherent thoughts together with every passing moment; his mouth was dry, and a slow serpent of fear had begun crawling up his spine, making him feel weak and helpless.

He could sense power rising very near by—Earth power, and even though it only brushed by him in passing, the moment it touched him, he felt panic stifling him. He knew that sort of power—born of blood and death. He had met its like before.

When he had been buried in that trench.

Alison began chanting somewhere on the other side of the stones, her voice echoing strangely, and he sensed the power awakening and answering her call—

He felt a whimper rising in his throat—

And a small, warm hand clamped itself over his mouth.

"Shh," Eleanor breathed in his ear. "It's all right; try not to make a sound. Alison and the rest are busy right now. If we're very careful, we might be able to get away before they realize we're gone."

And go where? he thought wildly, but he knew she was right. Whatever Alison was up to, there was a point she'd be so preoccupied with controlling what she was raising that she should be oblivious to anything but what she was doing.

The only question was, could he even walk, much less run?

It's not as if I have a choice, he reminded himself. It's run—somehow—or lie here and let her do whatever she's going to do.

Even though fear was welling up inside him and making him want nothing more than to curl up where he was and hide inside himself. Trying to huddle inside himself was not an option now. Even if he had felt willing to let them do whatever they wanted to him, what were their plans for Eleanor? If he gave up to the fear, he would be abandoning her.

But the fear had a mind of its own, where he was concerned. Despite his efforts to resist it, and all the work that Lady Virginia had done with him, he felt it taking him over, paralyzing him, flooding his heart with chill, until there was nothing real for him except that fear. His control slipped to the edge of loss, and tremors shook his body.

And then the miracle occurred. Eleanor's hand moved down from his mouth to rest over his heart, and warmth began to spread from it.

Not just physical warmth, either—a psychic warmth that stopped his shaking, and drove the fear back, a wonderfully fierce passion that had no time for creeping terror. It was like magic—