Phoenix and Ashes

absent air of a queen who has other concerns than the petty ones of her subjects.

Eleanor had hoped that somehow, someone would remember her existence and include her in the joint invitation, but no one had; it had read, 'Mrs. Alison Robinson, Miss Danbridge, and Miss Carolyn Danbridge.' Not even a hint of 'Eleanor.' She had almost given up at that moment, but it did occur to her that Sarah might know a way of slipping her in, somehow—or perhaps even was planning to forge an invitation. Granted she wouldn't be on the guest list, but perhaps no one would check that, or if they did, she could claim she was part of 'Alison Robinson and daughters.' Or perhaps Sarah meant for her to slip in through the gardens, though how she was to do that in an enormous ballgown eluded her.

She settled herself at Sarah's old, age-darkened kitchen table, her brazier in front of her, a Salamander already lying coiled in the coals without needing to be summoned.

'Here you are, just as I promised,' Sarah said, handing over a plain envelope that contained a cream-laid vellum one that—no mistake— was identical to the one in Alison's middle desk-drawer. The outer one was addressed to Sarah, but the inner to Eleanor herself— At an Oxford address. Somerville College, to be exact. She gazed at it in blank astonishment. She already knew what it contained, of course. Her invitation to the ball. But— 'How—' was all she could manage.

Sarah actually winked. 'I have my ways,' she said. 'A little word to—someone—who kindly reminded her ladyship that Miss Robinson was away at Oxford as the invitations were picked up to be given to the postman, so she rewrote the Robinson invitations on the spot. And then, a—fellow follower of the Ancient Ways, not an Elemental Master, who is—' She hesitated. 'Well, I'll only say this. She has every reason to be at Somerville, and she chose Somerville because it is the women's college that has no religious requirements that might conflict with her own faith.'

Eleanor gaped at her, feeling her eyes going rounder with every passing moment.

'Oh, don't look at me like that!' Sarah laughed. 'I told you there were more of us than you'd ever guess! At any rate, she intercepted your invitation and reposted it to me. That's all. You are on the guest list and you have a genuine invitation. So if I were you, I would stop staring and get back to my exercises, or on the day, you won't be able to get as far as the front gate.' She plucked the invitation from Eleanor's nerveless fingers. 'And I'll keep that safe, here. No point in risking having it found, and you'll have to come to me to dress anyway. Now, it's time to work, not daydream.'

It was difficult to concentrate on the tedious mechanics of a spell which amounted to telling something very stupid and slow, over and over, that a boundary wasn't where it had been originally set. Doing so when your arms and shoulders ached from all the fetching and carrying you'd done, and your legs from all the trips up and down the stairs, was even harder. Magic, she had come to understand, was largely a means by which the magician imposed her will on the world, and made the world conform to it.

That sounded very simple, and in theory, it was—or would be, if there was a simple world to deal with, and only one magician in it.

The problem was that there were a great many other things, a few of them also magical in nature, that were also imposing their will on the world. Ways had to be found to get the results one wanted with the least interference with everything else. Some interference was inevitable; meddling with things made ripples, and disturbed other things.

It wasn't just that one didn't want to disrupt other things that were going on out of courtesy—or fear of reprisal. It was that when one did interfere unduly, there were consequences. Everything one did magically had a cascading effect, like the little pebble that starts an avalanche. Sometimes, of course, one could stop the cascade before things became serious, but you had to be aware of consequences to do that. You had to look for the things you might change, and include them in your plan. You had to try and think of things that weren't obvious.

Consequences . . . and responsibilities. That called to mind the purview of the High Priest. The Magician. Most of all, the Hermit, who moved slowly and only after studying all the possible ramifications of his actions.

One of those ramifications was that when things were jarred into new patterns, there were sometimes— Things—that took notice; different creatures for each Element. The ones for Earth were the Trolls and Giants, for Fire, the Wyverns and Fire-drakes (entirely different species than true Dragons). For Water it was the Leviathans, and for Air the Wendigo. They were not very bright, but they were very powerful, very dangerous, and always, always hungry. What they 'ate' was the life-force of magicians. One did not want to attract their notice. Even Alison moved cautiously to avoid attracting Trolls and Giants.

So the smaller one's 'footprint' of influence was, the better.

Alison had gotten away with as much use of magic as she had because she had confined it mostly to one single person—Eleanor. Hedging one person in with spells did not make much of an effect on the rest of the world.

Now it was Eleanor's turn, and the best course of action now seemed to be to work on the spells already in existence. That meant, at the moment, persuading the spell that kept pulling her back to the hearth that it had never been meant to call her back when she went beyond the grounds of The Arrows—that instead its boundary was much farther. It would return to its previous state when she took her attention off it, of course, but that didn't happen at once, and in fact, the more she worked at this, the longer she had before it reverted.

The village was very quiet at this time of night. A dog barked out in the distance, and nearer at hand, the trees rustled as a breeze tumbled among their leaves. Inside there was only the pop and crackle of the small fire in the fireplace, and the sound of their breathing.