Phoenix and Ashes

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.'

A Fire Magician, in an astral projection? 'Could it have been one of the London Fire Masters responding to the presence of the revenants?' he hazarded.

'Possibly. More likely one of their students; the brief impression I got was of someone still in apprenticeship, so to speak.' She frowned. 'There isn't anyone in your village who would match that description, is there?'

'I never heard of any Fire Mages there.' He shrugged helplessly. 'Mind you, I was not here most of the time. If I wasn't at school, I was in London. Father never even told me who the other Masters were around here; he always said there would be plenty of time when I was finished at Oxford.' He frowned as he concentrated on a fugitive memory. 'I think there's a witch down there—Earth, of course—or at least, there was. I don't know if she's still alive, or if she's taken on students of her own. But Lady Virginia, if someone is strong enough to call up revenants and set them on me, shouldn't we inform Lord Alderscroft?'

Hope that he might yet evade Lady Virginia's demands sprang up in him.

'Surely this is a task for Alderscroft and the Council?' he persisted. 'An attack on a Council member—'

'First, there would have to be a Council left to do something,' Lady Virginia replied, caustically. 'What's left, now that all the young lions are at the Front, dead, or incapacitated, has their hands full with arcane demands from the Almsley's branch of the War Office.' Her lips tightened into a thin line. 'But that still isn't the point, Reginald.