She was in her own bed, crickets singing outside her window. Her heart pounded so hard she thought the bed might be shaking with the force of it, and she was terribly, terribly cold.
And a moment later, she began to shiver so violently that the bed did start shaking after all.
She tried to move, and couldn't, and her shivering grew worse. It was as if the cold itself held her prisoner, in bonds of ice. She had never been so cold; her teeth chattered with it, and her fingers and toes were numb with it, and she wanted a blanket desperately. But before she could make a second attempt to lurch out of bed to get one, something else came to her rescue.
Flowing out of the brickwork of the chimney came her Salamanders, three of them. They raced across the floor and slithered up into the bed, where one coiled itself against the small of her back, one wrapped itself around her shoulders, and one curled up just at the hollow of her stomach. Warmth spread from them, driving the numbing cold out of her, and after a moment, her shivering stopped and she began to relax.
As soon as she began to feel warm again, exhaustion hit her, as if she had been working beyond her strength. And when the last of remnants of her fear ebbed away, replaced by a weary lassitude, she gave in to it, and let sleep claim her again.
This time carefully not thinking of any questions, nor the Tarot. She'd had enough lessons for one night.
June 22, 1917
Longacre Park, Warwickshire
The card party that had begun so tediously had ended last night as a different sort of party altogether. Reggie could not have been more grateful. His aunt's good friend—and his own godmother—Lady Virginia de Marce had turned up, in her own motorcar, with her chauffeur and (though only he and his aunt knew this) arcane assistant Smith in attendance. Smith had efficiently organized the servants and gotten the formidable pile of Lady Virginia's belongings upstairs, while her ladyship tidied herself and returned to take control of the company.
Her ladyship could not help but take control of whatever company she was in. She had an air about her of absolute authority, she dressed like a queen, in her own unique style, based roughly on the enormous hats, trumpet-skirts and high-necked gowns of twenty years before, which somehow made her look tunelessly fashionable rather than outdated.
While every powerful Master that Reggie had ever met tended to exude that aura of authority, Lady Virginia had honed hers into a weapon. When she entered a room, she took charge of it and everyone in it.
With Smith's help, she had come downstairs again in less than a third of the time it would have taken any other woman, changed miraculously from her duster, goggles, veiled hat and traveling-ensemble to an exquisite gown of mauve lace. Smith, be it said, was also Lady Virginia's lady's maid—because Smith, chauffeur, arcane assistant, was a woman.
As Lady Virginia often said, "I am old enough to be able to hire whom I wish, and rich enough to be considered eccentric, rather than mad, when I do."
It was difficult to know whether one liked Smith; the curiously sexless servant was a past mistress of being inscrutable and virtually invisible. But there was no doubt that Smith was as efficient and formidable, in her own quiet way, as her mistress.
Reggie had more than once wondered if Smith was even human. It was possible that she was not; Lady Virginia, after all, was a formidable Master of Air, and it was just within the bounds of the possible that Smith was actually an Air Elemental of some arcane sort. Not likely, but possible.
As for appearances, Smith had gray eyes, curiously colorless hair kept cropped short, and invariably wore gray, either as a mannishly tailored suit, or a chauffeur's uniform (and somehow, perhaps because she looked so androgynous, no one was scandalized by a woman in trousers). She was always correct, always precise, and seldom spoke unless addressed directly.
And in fact, her name wasn't "Smith" at all. It was Melanie Lynn.
When he'd first learned this, he had been stupid enough and arrogant enough to take Lady Virginia to task for calling her servant "Smith" rather than "Lynn"—for there were people in his circle that couldn't be bothered to learn their servants' names. Instead, they had a habit of calling them whatever was convenient so that they would never have to learn a new name for the old position when one servant was replaced by another.
He should have known better. This was Lady Virginia, after all, who marched in the Suffragists' Parades, chained herself to the railing of Number 10 Downing Street, and helped Doctor Maya in her charity clinic.
"Are you mad, boy?" Lady Virginia had said, sternly. "It's not for my convenience! Smith wants me to call her Smith, and I'm not fool enough to gainsay her."
"Names are power," Smith had said, from behind him, startling him into a yelp, for he hadn't realized she had come in. "Smith is a cipher. When you are a cipher, boy, you can be anything. Standing out isn't always an advantage."
He often wondered where, exactly, Lady Virginia had found Smith, but after that day, he'd never dared to ask.
The game of bridge that had been taking place was utterly abandoned, as soon as Lady Virginia descended, tidied into elegance again. Her personality dominated the gathering without anyone other than Reggie really noticing. Within moments, she had smoothly and effortlessly redirected the conversation into a discussion of the remarkable achievements of young T. E. Lawrence in the Arabian campaign. It was a reasonably "safe" topic; an exotic enough locale that no one at the tables truly connected it with the war, and even if they had, Lawrence was leading an all-Arab army of resistance. No British lives—other than his own—were involved. He was the darling of the American as well as the British press. He was trailed about by an audacious American reporter. It was painless to find him interesting.
But there was something about the significant looks that she kept casting at Reggie that made him certain she was only biding her time until she could get him alone. Though why that should be, he couldn't guess.
Unless it had something to do with taking up magic again.
Surely not.
Nevertheless he was glad enough when his Aunt April, Lady Williams, declared that if she was tired, Lady Virginia must be shattered, and the local guests who had come from outside Longacre Park elected to take themselves back to their homes. He was able to slip away unobtrusively, and take to his own bed. Not that he had expected to sleep. His dreams—nightmares, really—had been so terrifying since the beginning of May that if he got three undisturbed hours in a night, it was a good night's rest. Only Doctor Maya's drugs kept the nightmares at bay, and he was beginning to feel uneasy about how much of that stuff he was taking.
He lay down in his bed, expecting to stare at the ceiling for hours, and had just begun to think about what Lady Virginia could want with him. That was when he actually fell asleep due to exhaustion.
Most nights of the last month, he had lain awake for hours, staring up at the ceiling, aware of a feeling of lurking hostility and menace, unable to determine where it came from.
So it was all the more surprising when he fell asleep immediately, and did not dream.