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Eleanor poured her visitor another cup of tea with a feeling of unreality. It still seemed an impossibility that she was here, settled in Oxford, a student at last in Somerville College.

"So," asked Doctor Maya, stirring honey from the Longacre hives into her tea in lieu of unobtainable sugar. "How are you enjoying life as a student of literature?"

"It's incredible," Eleanor replied. "I keep thinking I'm going to wake up in my bed in the garret and it will all have been a dream."

"And the studies?" Maya persisted, giving her a penetrating look. "They're going well?"

Eleanor laughed; she knew what Maya was thinking. That Reggie's proximity would be a powerful distraction. Little did she know that he was harder on her than her tutor, and she was harder on herself than both of them put together. "I think my generation is going to be a trial to those who follow us," she told the doctor. "Those of us who are here are determined to prove that we can be as valuable as the ones who left to become VADs or do some other sort of war-work. And when Oxford grants us degrees—which they will—we are going to be among the first in line to demand ours. Compared to what Alison kept me at, this is light duty." She sighed, but it was with content. "And compared to how I've been living at The Arrows, this place is a delight. Reggie keeps us both supplied with wood for the fireplaces from Longacre, and with other things, too. I find I can get a lot of help when I need it in trade for an egg or a jar of honey."

Maya tsked wryly. "You're a regular black-marketeer. I'll have to demand a bribe of some of those eggs to keep quiet, I'm afraid. They can't be had for any price in London."

Eleanor laughed. She was doing a lot of that these days. She didn't remember much past Alison's demise. She'd been drained almost to fainting, and Reggie was unconscious when Lady Virginia appeared like an avenging angel and carried them both off to Longacre. Lady Devlin hadn't known what to think—at first she had, with some bewilderment, tentatively welcomed Eleanor as the hitherto-unknown stepdaughter of her friend Alison Robinson.

Then the situation rapidly unraveled. It had been decided to say nothing about Alison, Warrick Locke, and the girls; the farmer upon whose land the Hoar Stones stood had found the autos, the body of Locke, and the two near-witless sisters. Constables digging in the churned-up earth had turned up the body of Alison, but other than that, no one could make heads or tails of why the four were out there in the first place, nor what had turned two young women into withered hags nor what had destroyed Locke. And, once Peter Almsley intervened on behalf of the War Office, country constables being what they were, it was decided that it was best not to ask too many more questions that couldn't be answered. It was all written up that Locke had murdered Alison and buried her body, and that the shock had prematurely aged her daughters, who had killed Locke in a fit of insanity This was more than scandal, this was sensation, and Eleanor suddenly found herself unwelcome at Longacre Park.

However, she was well on her feet by this time, and The Arrows was hers. Rightfully hers, as she found out when the lawyers came to see her. She didn't even need to lift a finger to do anything to help Carolyn and Lauralee if she chose not—

But she was not hard-hearted enough to throw them onto the state. Since they were clearly not fit to stand trial, they were currently being cared for in an institution for the criminally insane—comfortably, at Eleanor's insistence and expense.

Reggie's knee was shattered past all hope. Eleanor had met Maya when Lady Virginia had insisted that only Maya could or should tend to Reggie's injuries, and she and the doctor had hit it off immediately. Doctor Maya had done her best, but it was clear to her, and to the army surgeon who came to examine him, that he would never fly in combat again. Flying an aeroplane—at least, the current models—required having two good arms and legs.

So he as soon as he had gotten a cast on the leg, he had put in for a transfer to the Oxford branch of the Royal Flying Corps training school. He'd been accepted, of course; with a record like his, they'd have been insane not to accept him. So he was here when Eleanor had enrolled for her first year as a university student, reading literature. Here, there was no Lady Devlin to have to placate, and they could meet as often as they liked, which was generally every day. "You haven't announced an engagement?" Maya asked. Eleanor shook her head, twisting the ring that Reggie had "unofficially" given her. "I want to have finished my studies and passed my vivas, even if they won't give me a degree yet. And by then, maybe Lady Devlin will have come around to the idea of having me as a daughter-in-law."

Maya grimaced. "I'm sorry to hear that she's being an obstruction. Fortunately, that was not a problem in my case."

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Phoenix and Ashes
Phoenix and Ashes

Elanor Robinson's life had shattered when Father volunteered for the Great War, leaving her alone with a woman he had just married. Then the letter had come that told of her father's death in the trenches and though Eleanor thought things couldn't get any worse, her life took an even more bizarre turn.Dragged to the hearth by her stepmother Alison, Eleanor was forced to endure a painful and frightening ritual during which the smallest finger of her left had was severed and buried beneath a hearthstone. For her stepmother was an Elemental Master of Earth who practiced the darker blood-fueled arts. Alison had bound Eleanor to the hearth with a spell that prevented her from leaving home, caused her to fade from people's memories, and made her into a virtual slave. Months faded into years for Eleanor, and still the war raged. There were times she felt she was losing her mind - times she seemed to see faces in the hearth fire.Reginald Fenyx was a pilot. He lived to fly, and whenever he returned home on break from Oxford, the youngsters of the town would turn out to see him lift his aeroplan - a frail ship of canvas and sticks - into the sky and soar through the clouds.During the war Reggie had become an acclaimed air ace, for he was an Elemental Master of Air. His Air Elementals had protected him until the fateful day when he had met another of his kind aloft, and nearly died. When he returned home, Reggie was a broken man plagued by shell shock, his Elemental powers vanished.Eleanor and Reginald were two souls scourged by war and evil magic. Could they find the strength to help one another rise from the ashes of their destruction?

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