Phoenix and Ashes

A very nasty smile crept over Locke's face. "You know," he said, leaning over the table and lowering his voice to almost a whisper, "There are—the illnesses that one doesn't talk about in polite society—that do the same thing." He raised an eyebrow. "I could arrange for that—if you could arrange for the disease to act rather more swiftly than it usually does."

Alison stared at him for a moment, then suppressed smile of her own. "Now that is an interesting thought. Especially if I were to lodge a complaint with the police that she had run away, perhaps with a soldier, and she was to be brought back home by you very publicly, and in a—less than pristine state."

Locke spread his hands wide. "Sad thing, but an old story these days," he said. "Sheltered little country-girl, handsome fellow, and Til marry you when I come home, but why should we wait?' Men are such cads."

"And she needn't even actually leave the house," Alison said thoughtfully. "Carolyn bundled in a cloak could stand in for her when you 'return' her. No one would think twice about her not wanting to show her face after such a disgrace."

"The only thing I can think of that would cause a problem is—she still is showing signs of coming into her power as a Fire Mage, isn't she?" Locke asked. "And the nearer she gets to twenty-one, the harder it will be to keep her suppressed."

"Distressingly true; mind you, I've seen no signs, no signs at all, that she's coming into any significant power, only that she isn't ever burned, no matter what she does around fire," Alison replied, and pursed her lips. "Still, all the more reason not to use magic to drive her mad. Much better to use something purely physical."

Locke shrugged. "It's all one to me; one will be expensive in magical coin, the other in real money. I'll have to find the proper man— and it will have to be someone who wouldn't be missed, because when the job is over, if we want to keep things quiet, Robbie will have to take care of him."

"Well, Robbie would enjoy that, wouldn't he?" She smiled silkily.

"And we always like to give Robbie his little pleasures." Locke returned her smile. "He is such a loyal employee, and he asks so little in return for so much."

Deciding to proceed with caution, Alison elected to have Robbie drop her at Victoria Station, and took a taxi back to the Savoy. She was glad that she had; there was a messenger waiting for her in the lobby, and the packet he handed to her in return for her signature was sealed with Lord Alderscroft's signet.

Although she was impatient to see what was inside, she gave no outward sign; she tucked it under her arm and took it upstairs.

This was not just simple caution; the moment she touched the seal, she had known it was not just a physical protection against prying. So whatever lay within would be rendered unreadable if the seal was broken without the magical component being properly released. Not the wisest thing to do in a public place.

The girls were at the window of the sitting-room, putting charms on passers-by in the street below. They had moved on from simple lust-charms; she noted with approval that they were also distributing anger, depression, and quarrelsomeness with an even hand. Not all the charms "took," of course, but every failure was a lesson in what not to do—or who not to do it to. There were those who had mere touches of magic about them who were never touched by such things. It was best to learn to recognize such people so that if one had to curse them, one would know to use a stronger spell.

Seeing that they were gainfully occupied, Alison moved to the little writing-desk and opened the envelope, first tracing the counter-sigil on the seal so that the contents would remain intact. She never failed to feel amused at how those foolish men, with their silly White Lodge, refused to let her past the public rooms of their little club because she was female. They were like schoolboys, with their "No Girls Allowed" signs—or cavemen, superstitiously afraid of the "unclean" woman!

As she had hoped, the letter contained the dossier of the woman she was to impersonate. Alison Stanley, of the Northumberland branch of the Stanleys, had died when the hospital ship Britannia, on which she was a nurse, had been torpedoed, but because no one had printed a new edition of Burke's since the war began, she would still be listed as living. Early in the war, the casualty lists had been suppressed, so only Alison Stanley's immediate circle would be aware she was dead. Alison nodded with satisfaction. The northern Stanleys were as poor as church mice for all their pedigree, what little income they got went straight into trying to keep the roof on their ancient barn of a manor house patched, and no one from Longacre would ever have met any of them.

Lord Alderscroft gave her the particulars of her "family;" it was numerous, and she was going to have to memorize it all later.