He nodded; he dropped the staff and she crouched beside him; they clasped hands and let their own shields go.
Alison howled in triumph; the giant echoed it, and wrenched himself up further out of the earth.
Alison's shields flickered as she let the last of her concentration slip from them.
And together, a single melded lance of Fire and Air struck at the weakest point, blasting it away—and the shields unraveled.
Alison faltered, and took a single step back. The loss of her shields confused her for one vital moment.
And the giant turned, wrenching its body completely out of the ground. It stared at her for several long seconds; her eyes widened, as she realized in that instant that she was unprotected—
—and that all around her were creatures she had forced to obey her with whatever weapon came to hand. Creatures who saw her momentarily unprotected.
Like the giant that she had just created out of earth and blood and pain.
She looked up at it with her mouth open. It looked down at her.
And then, it fell upon her, burying her alive in a mound of freshly-turned soil before she could make a sound.
The last of the gnomes swarmed over the mound, burying themselves into the ground where she had been.
And suddenly, there was silence—except for the mindless whimpering of the two creatures that had once been Carolyn and Lauralee.
Reggie sank slowly to the ground, his teeth gritted against the agony of his ruined knee—slowly, only because Eleanor caught him as he fell and eased him down. That took the last of
SOME OF THE GIRLS THOUGHT the little studies in Somerville College were cramped and shabby. Then again, some of the girls were accustomed to the kind of accommodation one found at Longacre Park ... for Eleanor, even if the study had been the size and bleakness of her garret room at The Arrows, it still would have been paradise. A raw November wind rattled the windows, but she had a fine fire going (and before long, someone with less access to wood or a more slender budget for coal would be around to 'borrow' a log or two). One of the scouts had managed tea and toast; Eleanor had jam and butter from Sarah by parcel this morning. All was right with the world.
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
