Phoenix and Ashes

But the Air Master was a friend of the family and according to Sarah, a longterm visitor here, and probably had the run of the place. She would be allowed to go places where ordinary guests at the ball would be unwelcome.

Better and better. She must be on the right track.

And the breath of Air Magic was stronger now; she followed the scent down the darkened, shadow-haunted hall, and into—

—the library.

Here, for the first time since she had entered these doors, she found herself consumed with envy of the people who lived here. The Great Hall excited her not at all; she could only think of how it dwarfed everyone who set foot in it. That drawing room had been far too rich and opulent for her to feel comfortable in it, and besides that, the furnishings were antique, probably fragile, and without a doubt irreplaceable. But this room, with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with volumes—this, she desired. And in fact, as she took a few hesitant steps into the dimly lit room, she forgot, for a moment, why she was here, in the sudden surge of acquisitive desire.

"I beg your pardon, miss, but the party is—"

She started, then froze, at the sound of the familiar drawl, and the exclamation was startled out of her. "Reggie?"

There was a creak of leather as the figure rose out of the depths of an armchair to her left, and limped towards her. "Eleanor?" came the incredulous reply. "Is that you?"

She jerked at the ends of the ribbon of her mask, and pulled it off. "Of course it's me! I have an invitation!" she replied, now full of indignation. What? Did he think she was so far beneath him that she shouldn't be here?

"Of course you do; I addressed it myself," was his answer, as he limped out of the shadows with both hands outstretched. While most of the young men here were in their uniforms, he was not. He had donned a costume for the occasion; with a feeling of shock, she recognized the Magician from the Tarot deck, but the colors were blue, silver and white rather than red, white and gold. "I waited in the reception line for what seemed like hours, but you never came, and I thought—your stepmother—"

"She doesn't know I'm here," Eleanor said, her growing anger erased by the surge of irrational joy she felt at his words. "She'd have stopped me if she'd known I was coming." She felt the coercion of Alison's spells suddenly uncoil, sealing her lips over anything else she might have said.

"I thought it was something like that," was Reggie's only reply, as he took both her hands in his and gazed down into her eyes. "Look, let's not talk about your dreadful stepmother, nor your conniving stepsisters, nor anything else unpleasant. Mater has put on a first-rate show, so let's enjoy it together." He smiled at her, with something of the charm of the old Reggie. "So long as I'm with a girl, even if Mater doesn't know who she is, she'll leave me alone. If she does, so will everyone else, and it has not yet become the fashion, thank the good Lord, for ladies to cut in on men while dancing. Do you dance?"

She was so caught in those earnest eyes that all she could do was stammer, "I—haven't, not for—a long time—"

"Good, because my knee is a torture. We'll go revolve a little for form's sake, then—how about the garden? Capability Brown, you know, and all lit up with fairy-lanterns for the occasion. Appropriate for a fairy princess."

She hardly knew what to say. This was the sort of thing out of her wildest dreams, the ones she knew better than to believe in.

He's just using me as a defense against the girls like Carolyn and Lauralee— cautioned a bitter voice from her head.

But her heart replied, Then why is he looking at me like that? Because those pale eyes were warm with an emotion she did not yet dare to believe in, and he looked very much as if he would like to do more than simply look at her.

And sheer instinct made her nod, which evidently was answer enough for him. He took the domino from her nerveless hands, tied it back on, and tucked her right hand into the crook of his arm. "Let's go brave the throng."

This time, when they passed through the drawing room, the play stopped. Head turned in their direction, and as they crossed into the Great Hall, she sensed the whispers begin behind them.

And as if this had suddenly turned into a fairy tale, as they walked into the Great Hall, they were surrounded by a zone of silence, and all eyes turned towards them. Reggie ignored it; she felt her cheeks flushing, but held her head high, and tried to walk with dignity. He led her to the exact center of the room, as the musicians in the corner brought their current number to a swift conclusion. Once there, he swung her to face him, and the next thing she knew, she was turning in his arms around the floor to the strains of a waltz.