Phoenix and Ashes

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—

No, it was magic! It was Fire magic, the complement and perfect partner to Air— Fire magic being directed by the sure hand of someone who, if she was not yet a Master, would certainly one day become one!

Before he could wonder where she had suddenly gotten that skill, a set of shields grew up around both of them; slowly, so slowly that at first he thought the perimeter of warming around him was some side-effect of the magic she was working on him. The he realized that she was building shields—not as he would have expected out of a Fire Mage, with a showy rush of upwelling, vibrant power, but slowly, as if beginning from the barest, glowing coals and building a fire by patiently feeding those coals a little air, a little fuel, straw by straw.

By that time he was no longer shaking; though his head still ached and he felt sick, his mind was clear again. Not that he wasn't afraid— and so was she, he sensed it in the rigidity of her body where it lay wedged against his, and the way she was trembling—but fear was no longer paralyzing him.

I need to help her—and it has to be just as subtle, so that we don't alert Alison to what we're doing.

First he needed to help her with those shields. Then—could he call a Sylph and sent it for help? Would one even come so near the poisonous, dark Earth power that Alison was raising?

He had to try; the nearest help was Lady Virginia, and the only way to get word to her was via an Air Elemental.

But it would be the first time he had called one since the crash. Would they even come to him anymore?

He's awake! That was more than Eleanor had hoped for; she hadn't even cared that he was shaking hard enough to rattle both of them. She'd been hearing bits about this 'shellshock' business from Sarah, and it didn't surprise her at all that Reggie suffered from it—fine, so he was overwhelmed by fear. Well, she had the counter to fear, the weapon to drive it back. Fear couldn't stand against the fire of passion.

But one thing did surprise her. Before, it had been as if he was surrounded by an impenetrable wall that allowed nothing arcane to get in at him—but which was also opaque to his senses so that he never knew that she was a Fire Mage. Now—now he was open.

Open enough that she responded to his fear completely on instinct. She put her hand over his heart, and willed her power into him.

Fire—

Passion. Courage. Heart. Fire was all of these things and more, but these were the ones that were important now, to shore up his crumbling emotions and give him strength to find his feet again. She sensed it, she knew it; that was all he needed, just a little help—he wanted to fight his own fear, but he was so worn by it that he hadn't the strength. Very well; he should have some of hers.

And when she sensed he was no longer shaking, she went to work building shields around the two of them, starting with the merest trace of power, layering them up slowly, so that—she hoped—Alison wouldn't notice what was happening until it was too late.

It was after the first three or four layers had been constructed that she sensed another power joining hers.

She had never felt Air magic before, but even if her inner sight hadn't shown her the soft blue glow of it, she had no doubt of what it was; there was a lightness to it, the coolness of intellect, and a liveliness. Even as he layered in his own subtle shields, interleaving them with hers, she felt his magic feeding hers, Fire and Air mingling until the blending was far more powerful than the mere sum of both. And at that moment she felt her own courage rise.