Phoenix and Ashes

'A little magic here, a little magic there; hers more than mine, you understand, since I'm but a mere Witch, and she was a Master. But— oh, she would speak to the Salamanders of a night, and find out whose chimneys were getting over-choked with soot, and I'd have a word with the owner of the house by-and-by, and Neil Frandsen would come along and clean it, and there'd be no chimney fire, do you see?'

Eleanor blinked again. 'Is that the plumber, Mr. Frandsen? The man that cleans chimneys with a shotgun?'

Sarah threw back her head and laughed. 'Oh, aye! But less often then than he does now, I'm afraid—he was nimbler when he was young; now he don't like to go atop the houses much. But you see what we did? And there was other things—never a house-fire have we had hereabouts once she came into her powers, nor a barn-fire, and no accidents with fire either. If a cottager's baby tumbled into a fire, it tumbled right back out again, with just enough scorching on his smock to make his mama take better heed. No fires from a coal hopping out; no curtains blowing into candles nor gas-flames. Sometimes it isn't so much doing things that's important as it is keeping them from happening.' She sighed. 'I remember how she used to put you in your cradle next to the fire, or once you were old enough, just on a blanket. No worries you'd be burned, of course—the Salamanders used to frisk and play around you, and you'd laugh and try to catch them with your little hands. Clear enough it was, you'd taken after her. And then—she died.'

'She drowned,' Eleanor whispered, and shuddered. All her life, the one thing she'd been afraid of was water. Sarah nodded.

'The enemy Element,' Sarah said sadly. 'The Element that hates hers; the river flooded, you see, and to this day, I don't know if it was accident or an enemy. She could have told me, but—well, the river flooded and washed out the bridge as she was trying to get across to get home to you. Her allies had no power to save her. And your father, well, he couldn't bear to look upon me, who was her close friend, so I stayed away. And you seemed to be flourishing, and I heard about you going up to university and all, and I thought, well, well enough, I'll leave her be, and when she starts to come into her power, I'll send to the Fire Masters who've people at Oxford, and they'll take on the teaching of you. So much more clever than I, those dons and scholars—'

'But She came.' Eleanor's voice cracked.

'Then She came.' Sarah's voice hardened. 'My Element, but a Master, more powerful than me, and better connected by far. In magic as in everything else, it's who you know that gets you places, and what you've got.' Sarah grimaced. 'She's trusted by them as should know better, but don't; there's no help there—yet. I could no more stand against her than your mother could stand against the flood. But you are coming into your powers, and I can set your feet on the right path, and you can break her, if you grow strong enough. And this is where I can make a start—'

She got up out of the chair where she was sitting and walked over to the hearth. She stared down at the hearthstones for a moment, then bent, and traced a symbol with her index finger on one. It glowed for a moment, a warm, lovely golden-amber, before sinking into the stone.

'Blast her,' Sarah muttered under her breath. 'She's stronger than I thought.'

'What?' Eleanor asked.

'It's a spell that will answer to Fire as well as Earth; it's what She did to bind you here. I know a counter that will work within her spell to free you from this house and hearth for a few hours at a time, though you won't be able to go farther than, say, Longacre,' the witch said. 'You'll have to learn how to work magic of your own to make her spell answer to you, how to bend it to your will for a little—we'll start you learning Fire magic now, if you're ready, but definitely before she comes back.'

'I—Sarah, I don't know, this all seems so—' She was going to say, 'impossible to believe,' but at exactly that moment, something looked at her out of the hearth-fire. She looked back, feeling her eyes widen as she recognized the fiery-eyed lizard of her dreams.

'Well, and there you are,' Sarah said, with triumph, following her startled glance. 'Salamander. Sure sign of you coming into your powers, no matter what she's done.'

'You can see it too?' she asked incredulously.

'Well, of course. I can see the Elementals, and if they feel like it, they might help me out, but I can't command them, not even Earth. I'm not a Master,' Sarah said; wistfully, Eleanor thought. 'But you can command the ones of Fire; because you're a Fire Master, you'll have their respect, and because of your mother, you already have their loyalty, and the only way you'd lose that would be to do something they didn't like.'

'What do you mean, I have their loyalty?' Eleanor asked incredulously.

'Hold out your hand,' Sarah replied. 'To the fire, I mean. You'll see.'

Dubiously Eleanor did so, and before she could pull away with surprise, that same something leapt out of the flames and began twining around her hands like a friendly ferret. It looked like a lizard made of flame, and it felt like sun-warmed silk slithering through her fingers and around her wrists.

'It's not burning me—' she gasped, staring at the creature in fascination.