The Heart of the Phoenix (20 page)

The old woman sent one of her helpers back to the house, the very house she now sat in from the look of it – a quick consultation of Penny’s memories confirmed the suspicion – with most of the children. Others she called back to her.

“Alia, Sue, Penelope, Danielle.” Her voice was a cracked ruin, but it carried well enough, and the girls flocked to her side. “Go with Miss West. I’ll meet you at the hollow.”

Conversation stopped as a young man with a tripod and camera stepped into frame, and the silence held until he vanished.

“Should we start without you, ma’am?” Miss West asked as she shepherded the girls into line.

The old woman nodded and said, “The Phoenix is...”

And there the memory ended, the photo floating back to the surface of the glass.

They were Phoenix Girls
, Flanna thought, but with no real surprise. She didn’t know what a home for girls was, maybe a place where the people of this world sent their unwanted daughters, maybe a school of magic, though that seemed unlikely given what Tracy had taught her over the years. This world didn’t have magic, except for special places like Aurora Hollow, and those people who did have magic had learned long ago to hide it.

Tracy’s family name is West
, Flanna remembered, and wondered if she was kin to the Miss West in the photograph. It seemed a possibility, since Tracy had once been a Phoenix Girl. She wondered if her father knew that detail of Tracy’s past, and decided he must. She would have to ask him. She would have to ask them both the next time she saw them.

Flanna followed the history of young Penelope Johnson and her family, and realized that it was her family. She discovered her mother’s twin, and wondered where Nancy Sinclair was now, and if she had played a part in her own sister’s death.

She was reaching for another photo from Penny’s old family picture book when she heard the sound of Susan’s van pulling up to the house. She quickly tucked the picture book and the Conjuring Glass back beneath Penny’s bed, and reluctantly descended into the house below to greet them.

The day’s investigations into her family’s past had given her a lot to think about, and much of it troubling.

Torin stumbled as he crossed the threshold, dropping several inches from the concrete of the back alley sidewalk to the dirt of Aurora Hollow. Janet had already taken up a seat on one of the great old ash tree’s lower limbs. She appeared comfortable but alert, her wand aimed at Torin.

Tracy’s grip on his collar kept him upright, and once she was sure he wasn’t going to fall on his face, she gave him a shove.

He stumbled again, and this time he did fall. The landing was soft, seasons of duff cushioned the fall, saving him a lot of pain as his knees and the palm of his left hand struck. His right hand had started moving for the wand hidden in an inner pocket of his cloak the moment of the shove, and by the time he was pushing himself upright again he had hold of it. He was still rising when he began his draw, and he heard the door slam shut behind him.

“No you don’t,” Janet said, but her spell missed as he dove and rolled to the side.

He fired at Tracy, but she was quick to block. The force of the colliding spells rocked her backward, but Nancy had slipped from behind her, and Torin felt the wand tugged from his grip and watched it fly into the air. Tracy caught it on its way back down, smiling.

“Can I give it back, Nancy?” Torin wasn’t sure if Tracy was joking or serious. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “I wanna play with him some more.”

“No time to play,” Nancy said. There was no playfulness in her voice, no fun in her face or eyes. She clearly wasn’t in a playful mood. “Di is already looking for him. I think we should finish up here before she finds us.”

“That sounds rather ominous,” Torin said, raising both hands in surrender. “I should warn you though, my family may take it personally if you kill me.”

“Save your warning,” Tracy said. She now had two wands aimed at him, he was irritated to see, hers and his. “If we planned to kill you then we would have last year.”

“Well, if you’re just here to welcome me to town, consider me good and welcomed.” He gave a sharp little bow and started back toward the door. “If you’d be kind enough...”

“I’m nowhere near kind enough,” Nancy said, stepping to block his path. She pulled a piece of folded paper from her pocket and shook it open. It was a thick cream stock, hand-written in a practiced, flowing style. “I know you’ve been writing her, it’s clear this infatuation you have isn’t a passing fancy, and I accept that she feels the same way about you.”

“What we don’t accept is your creepy level of knowledge about us,” Janet said. “You claim to be from... where?”

Janet looked to Tracy and Nancy.

“Brittany,” Nancy said. “Funny, you don’t sound British.”

Torin rolled his eyes.

“I think Brittany is in France,” Janet said.

“Doesn’t sound French either,” Tracy said.

“Whatever,” Nancy said. “How do you know so much about us?”

“Because my family has been coming here for generations,” Torin said, which was true enough. “You’re not the first Phoenix Girls we’ve met.”

“And how did the Reds get along with them?”

“Well enough,” Torin lied.

“So your family wouldn’t mind if we all showed up and introduced ourselves before the show tonight?” Nancy smiled as Torin’s cocky demeanor crumbled around the edges.

“Well, overall I’d say, probably not.” The truth was that his father would probably throw him in the deepest cell in Galatania if he found out Torin had been romancing one of the Phoenix Girls, but his father was nearing the end of his days, and it was still not clear which of Brom Fuilrix’s sons would assume the leadership. It was true that Tynan was the elder, but it was the family who would decide, and his uncles, aunts, and cousins had liked Torin better. Even if Tynan won the seat of power, it was to be hoped that he would be more open minded than their father.

Strangely, that seemed to mollify Nancy, though only a little.

“You really do like her,” Nancy said. “You’re risking more than my anger by sneaking around with her.”

For once, Torin felt that he could be completely honest with these odd young women.

“I love her,” he said. “And the time is coming when I may be able to do so openly.”

The three Phoenix Girls stared at him in silence for a long moment. Tracy and Janet seemed to be awaiting Nancy’s judgment.

At last, Nancy lowered her wand, and nodded for her friends to do the same.

“Okay, I know you’re keeping secrets from us, but I believe that you love her.” She scowled unconsciously, leaving Torin in no doubt as to how she felt about that. “If you betray her I’ll hunt you down.”

Torin believed her, and fervently hoped it would never come to that.

“Give him his wand,” Nancy said, and Tracy moved to comply, though with clear reluctance.

Now that the immediate threat of violence had passed, Torin felt it was time to assert himself a little. They’d fooled him and taken him easily, but he didn’t want them to walk away from this encounter believing he was helpless.

Both hands still raised, Torin gave his left a small shake. The wand concealed down his left sleeve shot upward into his grasping fist, and before they could react, he pointed it at his wand in Tracy’s hand. It flew from her grasp and into his right hand. By the time Nancy had raised her own wand again, both of his were stowed out of sight, and he stood with his arms crossed, waiting to be escorted back to town.

Tracy looked ready for a fight, but Nancy actually smiled, and Janet burst into laughter, still perched in the ash tree above them.

“I should return,” Torin said. “My brother will be wondering where I am, and he is already in a grumpy mood today.”

* * *

“How did you first meet her?” The more he told, the more she itched with curiosity. She wanted to know everything, and for the first time in her life, all of her questions were being answered.

“My first trip to Dogwood,” Torin said, and a smile spread across his face. “I knew who she was, I knew who all of them were, but we were told never to engage them. We were to keep our distance, investigate their grove only when we knew it would be safe, and watch for two things above all else.”

“What?”

“We needed to know if the people of Dogwood had discovered their secrets,” Torin said. “If their secrets were revealed it would mean a dangerous level of exposure, not just for them, but for us. We may have been a world away, but the wall between the worlds is thin in Aurora Hollow, as our furry friend may have already told you.”

Ronan nodded. “I believe I may have mentioned that to young Penny.”

“And even more importantly, we needed to know if any of them recognized us for who and what we were.”

“Why?”

“Have you had any lessons with Bowen?” Ronan asked unexpectedly.

The question caught Penny off guard, and she had to think back for a moment.

“Yes,” she said. “The Death of the Phoenix...”

Ronan and Torin both cringed away from her at the mention of the taboo legend. Ronan peered up at the iron grate to make sure no one was spying on them, and Torin shook his head and hissed
shhhh
.

“And,” Penny continued, unabashed, “the history of the Gallic Wars. “

Torin nodded, relaxing a little.

“So you know how we came to this world. If the Phoenix Girls had recognized us for who we were, that could mean they had discovered the way to our world,” he said. “And even three millennia after being driven there by the barbarians of your world, we hold a grudge.”

There was a clang from above as the cell door crashed open.

“But we never had a clue,” Tracy said, descending on her hovering disk again. “All of your worries over the centuries, all of the subterfuge, and the Phoenix Girls did not even know your world existed, let alone discovered the hidden road to it. At least until you came.”

Her disk clanged down on the stone floor and she stepped from it, her wand at the ready.

“Two visits in as many days,” Torin said. “We are popular now aren’t we?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Tracy said. “You gave up the secrets of your family, your world, to your enemies. If it wasn’t for the old taboo, they would have put you to death years ago.”

“I was trying to end centuries of hostility,” Torin said, the old playful banter gone from his voice. “A pact between the House of Fuilrix and the Phoenix Girls would have benefited everyone.”

“You betrayed us for love,” came another voice, a voice that froze Torin in place and raised the hackles on Ronan’s neck. “You gave up our secrets for the affection of a woman.”

Penny watched as another metal disk lowered itself through the cell’s open iron grate. The man standing on it was her father without the long hair or beard, Torin as he had appeared in the picture she used to carry around. Except for the scar that ran down the right side of his face from temple to jaw.

The scar jogged something in Penny’s memory, something just out of reach of her conscious mind, a puzzle piece in search of a proper place to fit itself. She grasped for it and felt it slip away. Then the man turned in her direction, and any ability Penny had to think clearly fled.

She took a step backward and felt an unexpected hand land on her shoulder. She locked her lips against a scream, and let her father pull her back against his side, feeling, and loving, the protective embrace of her father for the first time in her life.

The new man drifted down in a tense silence, his eyes shifting from Penny, to Ronan, and settling on Torin as he set down next to Tracy. He was an intimidating figure, a voluminous back robe and heavy crimson cloak, a symbol embroidered in crimson on the chest of his robe that Penny had no trouble recognizing. It was the crimson brand on Turoc’s forehead, the tattoo on Diana Sinclair’s wrist when Penny had watched the photograph of her mother come to life in the Conjuring Glass.

“Hello, brother,” the man said. “It has been a long time.”

“Yes, Tynan” Torin said, his voice carefully neutral. “The last time we spoke face to face, we were in another world.”

Tynan smiled, but it was a superficial thing, an expression without emotion. There was no trace of humor or good will on his face, and his eyes were like green chips of ice.

“The House of Fuilrix will return to Old Earth soon... our first visit since your troubles there.” He stepped off his disk, and Torin took a step back, dragging Penny with him.

Ronan moved forward, stepping between them, and Penny heard a low, vulpine grumble filling the silence between them.

“Call off your familiar, Torin, or I’ll have to hurt it.” Tynan shrugged his cloak loose of his left shoulder and drew a wand from a slim leather sheath on his belt. A pendant hidden by the cloak fell loose and dangled from a heavy gold chain. “I know how much you enjoy its company, and I would hate to deprive you.”

“Stop, Ronan,” Torin said, and when Ronan made no move to obey, he spoke again in his strange language.

Ronan’s growl quieted, then ceased, and he backed away to Torin’s other side.

“Turoc,” Tynan shouted, and a moment later the snakeman slipped through the open grate and landed behind Tynan and Tracy. Tynan spoke again in their native language, and when Torin didn’t reply, Turoc slithered around Tracy to face Penny, his mouth opening in a fang-filled parody of a smile.

Torin replied in that incomprehensible language, and Tynan seemed satisfied. He nodded to Turoc, who slipped back behind them, his smile fading.

“Princess Penny,” Tynan said, turning to her with that cold smile. “It was a happy surprise to learn you were alive, but perhaps not so much when I learned you had resurrected an order we hoped had been permanently disbanded.”

Beside Tynan, Tracy shifted and looked down at her feet, a motion not lost on Tynan. He turned to her, frowning.

“I was under the impression that she had died.”

“She was dead,” Tracy said, still looking at her boots. “You saw the body.”