Phoenix and Ashes

She didn't have to say aloud what she was thinking—that if her mother had known more about the strengths and weaknesses of the antagonistic Element of Water, she might not have died. She knew Sarah was thinking the same thing by the faint expression of regret mixed with other emotions too fleeting to catch.

But one of them was pride—pride in the daughter who was, perhaps, a little wiser than her mother.

"You're learning," was all Sarah said.

"I bloody well hope sol" Eleanor snapped, with a little show of Fire temperament, quickly throttled before it could have any other effect. "And before you say it, I will say it for you. Back to work. We have only a fortnight, and I have a lot of progress to make before then."

Sarah only nodded.

I'll do it because I have to. There's no going back now.

26

August 7,1917

Longacre Park, Warwickshire

ON JULY THE 30TH, THE British had begun a major offensive at Ypres; like most of Britain, Reggie only got wind that something was afoot when the "regrets" began to come in. And he hadn't thought much of it at first, until today.

Today the post was full of them.

One or two officers canceling would have been a fluke—all of them at once meant a big push. When even the band canceled by the morning post (momentarily throwing his mother into a state of despair until Lady Virginia came to the rescue, promising a small orchestra made up entirely of women), he had known that there was something truly major going on.

He and his old college chums Steve and Geoff had a sort of unwritten code; by the afternoon post, when both of them sent brief notes referring to Caesar's campaigns in Gaul along with their apologies, he had all the information he needed. And far more than he wanted.

The Brigadier and his mother had tried to keep it from him, of course, but by late afternoon it had been in all the papers. He'd managed to keep himself together long enough to send a hasty telegram to Michael Dolbeare to recruit more RFC cadets to make up the difference, pledging to cover their train fare if need be, which considerably calmed his mother down about the holes in her guest list. That had been going through the motions, actually, because if he had thought about it, he might have lost his temper with her. How could she be in such a state over a mere absence of male guests, when across the Channel all hell was breaking loose? Bad enough that other people were being so callous, but this was his own mother.

And he'd been all right until just before dinner, until it hit him, until it really sank in. Then the shakes had started.

He kept himself together until he managed to reach the safe haven of his rooms. He even managed to pull his own curtains closed, and shut and lock the door. Then the fear got hold of him by the throat and shook him like a dog, sending him to his knees, making him crawl into the darkest corner of the room, where he shivered and wept and choked back moans of terror. He couldn't even put two ideas together into a whole; he didn't even know what he was afraid of. He only knew that this vast, insensate, and ravenous beast that was the war was loose, and it was going to devour the entire world and there was nothing he could do to stop it. ...

He had vaguely heard someone pacing outside his rooms, rattling the knob once or twice, but they left him alone, for which he was both grateful and felt betrayed at the same time. Grateful, because he could not bear anyone seeing him like this. Betrayed, because they were leaving him alone with this fear, this mind-killing, soul-shriveling fear—

And all he could do was huddle, and shake, as wave after wave of the terror engulfed him, then ebbed, only to return.

How long he was in there, he couldn't have told; only that some time after darkness fell, there was the sound of a key in the lock, and the unmistakable presence in the room of Lady Virginia.

She closed the door behind her; he heard the scratch of a match, and smelled the sharp sulfur as she lit candles.

"Reggie," she said, quite as calmly as if he was not huddled in a ball in the corner. "I am not Doctor Maya, but I am very old, and I have seen a very great deal in my time. And if you can manage to bring yourself here, I may be able to offer you some little comfort. I should come down there on the floor next to you, but my bones are not so young that they permit any such thing anymore."

Somehow, he managed to crawl out of that corner. Somehow he managed to get to her, and put his head on her knee like a spaniel, and croak out a few words. He wasn't even sure what he was saying, only that he was giving some shape to the fear that was devouring him alive.