Phoenix and Ashes

The girls stared at her, as if they had never seen their mother so nonplussed either.

Eleanor wondered what it meant.

'No Sylphs about,' Alison said, consideringly. 'As if the Sylphs do not recognize him as having Air Mastery either. No Zephyrs. They can't see him—I'm sure that's what that means. And yet, no shields, either. As if ... as if he is a magical cipher, a null. . . .'

'Actually, Mama,' Lauralee said reflectively. 'It's more as if the spells we cast on him are just swallowed up.'

'Drained away,' Carolyn echoed. 'Or reflected, but not back at us.'

'How . . . odd. Then I believe we are going to have to rethink our strategy,' Alison brooded. 'I wanted him to be attracted to you before I went to work more directly. I am going to need to make new plans.'

'What new plans, Mama?' Lauralee asked leaning forward over the table eagerly. 'Are you going to teach us new magic?'

Eleanor watched as Alison rubbed her hands along her arms uneasily. 'Well, the magic that you two can cast is clearly not going to work. In fact, I would say he is probably resistant to all but the most powerful magic.'

Both of them gazed at their mother with hunger now. Eleanor had wondered, ever since Sarah had come to the door, if Alison had been purposefully holding back teaching her daughters, or if her daughters were just not capable of greater magic. It was hard to tell—though it was true that none of the Earth Elementals were attracted to the girls.

Now she heard the answer, or at least, the answer that Alison was going to give them. 'I'm afraid, my dears, you have no more inborn ability with magic than Warrick Locke. And I don't think at this point it would be wise to use my greater magics for more than I already have planned. So instead of using magic, use your wiles; show no jealousy of the other girls, but be the most pleasant and charming creatures in the room. Pay attention to everything he does and says. Work out what pleases him and what he would prefer not to deal with. Be sympathetic, and find things to get his mind off the war. That will do for now. Meanwhile, I will need to do some research of my own.'

Eleanor had wondered about that. Her own feeling, once she had begun learning about magic herself, had been that neither girl would ever be a Master—because if that were possible for them, they would have surely shown some sign of it by now.

'Yes, Mama,' the two chorused as one. They left the table to go up to their rooms, as Alison rang for Eleanor to clean up.

Is that why Reggie recognized me, when no one else in the village does? she wondered, as she carried plates back to the kitchen. Because Alison's spells just don't work on him?

It hadn't been until she had gotten back to the kitchen after first meeting him that she had realized Reggie had recognized her, had known who she was, almost from the first moment he had seen her. Other than Sarah, he was, apparently, the only other person who did. And she hadn't been able to get away to ask Sarah why that could be since the meeting.

Events in the household had conspired against her. First, despite Alison's assertion that she and the girls would be having tea up at Longacre for the foreseeable future, that hadn't exactly come to pass. The next day had been Alison's 'at home,' and although Alison certainly wanted to claw her way into the social circles of Longacre, she knew better than to abandon her post as leading light of Broom. For one thing, there were quite a number of things that the ladies of Broom could do to undermine Alison's progress if they chose. And for another, as she explained to her daughters, there was no point in prematurely burning bridges. The social set of Broom was still useful—particularly that centered around the vicarage, for the vicar, Donald Hinshaw, and his wife Theresa were the one couple who traveled socially freely between village and the big house.

Then the next day had been a meeting of the Ladies' Friendly Society, and it had been held at The Arrows, though under the auspices of its president, Amy Hammer. It had been yet another bandage-rolling meeting, and as a consequence, the house had been filled with women, all of whom required tea and refreshments. Now, those meetings were ones at which Eleanor had to be particularly careful of what was served; it wouldn't do at all to make it look as if this household was immune from the current privations—but at the same time, Alison was adamant that the tea be something that would elevate her status as a hostess. It all came down on Eleanor's shoulders, of course. It meant a great deal of cutting up heavy brown bread into thin, thin slices, toasting it delicately, and removing the crusts, spreading it with layers of jam and potted shrimp. It meant cutting more wafer-thin slices of brown bread and adding wafer-thin slices of smoked Scottish salmon atop. It meant baking whatever sort of cake could be managed with what was available in the village shops.

So that pretty well put paid to getting away that day. And the next, Warrick Locke had come for the afternoon. It had been all about business and legal papers; there was a good clue now to which sort of 'business' was going on when Locke showed up. If it was mundane business, he brought with him his personal secretary, a curiously opaque lady named Jennifer Summers, as well as his 'man,' Robbie Christopher. Eleanor was not around Miss Summers enough to make a judgment of her, but Robbie made her flesh crawl. There was just something not right about him. As a consequence, she kept well out of their way. Locke spent the entire afternoon closeted with Alison, going over any number of matters concerning the manufactories.

He might be a horrible man, but he did know his business.