The Fire Rose

CHAPTER TWELVE

Rose pulled a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and took a tighter grip on her piece of soft chalk. She had never much favored the rather risque costume for women espoused by Amanda Bloomer, but she had asked Jason for permission to order one on the chance that she might need it, and it was proving invaluable today. It might be immodest and not at all modish, but she could never have drawn these chalk diagrams on the slate floor of Jason's workroom if she had been wearing any kind of skirt. She would have found it difficult to get down on her hands and knees, and the voluminous skirts and dragging hems would have been in danger of erasing much of her work.

I do wish I could do this drawing unsupervised, however. I feel like a hoyden. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she noted that Jason was not looking at her, but at the last piece of the design she had finished. At least all that he said was, "how very practical." She consoled herself with the undoubted fact that she was no more exposed than if she had been wearing a modern bathing-costume. And certainly Jason had seen far more female flesh exposed on the stage in this city, Good heavens, the minuscule dresses worn by the corps de ballet at the Opera covered less than this! And those were prim compared to the tiny costumes espoused by the dancers in music-halls.

Besides, there was more at stake here than her modesty.

My knees, for instance. How they ache! Her knees felt bruised and sore, and her back and shoulders were stiff and painful. She had been at this task for hours now, and felt a strong kinship with those poor creatures forced to scrub floors for a living.

Jason himself stood to one side, coatless, and supervised the drawing, the overall diagram in one hand. She had a copy of the same diagram with her and had it lying open beside her bundle of colored chalks, but it helped to have someone outside it to see that she hadn't somehow overlooked something. They had laid out each portion with rulers, compasses, a carpenter's chalk-lines, and string; she had worked from the inside out, circling around the center of the room like a planet in its orbit around the sun. This Working Room of Jason's was a curious place; the walls featured inset panels of slate of the same kind as the floor, in case he might need to contrive a Work that required diagrams to be made on the walls as well as the floor. There were no windows, none at all. The room itself was not large, not as large as it seemed, since it contained no furniture of any kind. Between the panels of slate on the walls were ship's lamps, the kind that magnified the light coming from them, so that when they were all lit the room was as bright as possible. At the moment, every one of them was alight, making it easy to see if there were any mistakes in the diagram.

Rose was drawing the diagram, rather than Jason, for three reasons. He had trouble bending; his joints had been oddly warped by his transformation, and a half hour of drawing on the floor left him in agony. Drawing such diagrams was rightfully the work of the Apprentice, anyway, so that the Master could supervise the construction of the whole. She was the Apprentice, and when he had proposed this Work, she had taken it for granted that she would be the one doing the drawing, and had said as much. And last of all, she'd had a suspicion, which a quick test had proved, that the transformation had rendered Jason partially color-blind. Subtle colors—the pale colors of the chalks, for instance—all looked very much alike to him. It was only when hues were saturated that he could tell them apart. Taking them into strong sunlight helped, but he had not thought to do that before she pointed his deficiency out to him. She had further confounded him by proving to him that although he could, with concentration, tell the chalks themselves apart most of the time, he literally could not tell a chalked line of green from one of blue in even the strongest artificial light—and it was not possible to take the finished diagram out into the sun.

"That may have been what went wrong the last time," she had pointed out. "If you cannot tell blue from green, or green from yellow, and you did not remember to label them, you would have been drawing symbols in the wrong colors for their Quarters. You could have gotten the whole diagram so hopelessly mixed that nothing would have sorted it out."

"I don't know if that would have made a difference or not," he had said hesitantly. "The old Masters only had white chalk available for the most part, so that was what they used."

"I suspect that plain white chalk would not make a difference, but it would seem to me that the wrong color would," she had told him firmly. "Several of your sources are very firm about the importance of color to the Elementals. It is difficult enough for a Firemaster to gain the attention of Water Elementals long enough to convince them to leave his Work alone—only think how less likely that is if he uses the wrong color! The last time you attempted a Work, you got absolutely nothing for your pains, and that might well have been because you offended all the Elementals except your own."

He had nodded, reluctantly. And that was why she was on her hands and knees chalking out the four Quarters of his diagram in the right colors—pale red for Fire and the South, blue for Air and the East, green for Water and the West, and yellow for Earth and the North. If anything went wrong tonight, it would not be because the diagrams had been mismanaged!

And from now on, if he decides he must work alone, I suspect he will take care to use plain white chalk.

Oh, but her knees and her back hurt! If this was the lot of the average Apprentice, she had some sympathy with du Mond now for his alleged laziness. This was not something she would care to endure, night after night.

She was taking particular care with this diagram because there was not a great deal else she could control in this project. This was to be a Work that Jason himself had attempted only twice in the past, both times when he was working under the supervision of his own Master, both times for purposes less urgent than this one. It was common enough that every Magician of any sort knew it, or a variation on it, but the particulars were such that few ever attempted it.

For one thing, it required the presence of a virgin, male or female. Few Magicians remained chaste long past the age of majority, and the kind of women who tended to be attracted to Magicians—and that were also willing to be part and parcel of a Work—were generally not virginal. According to Jason, Magicians were of two varieties when it came to the opposite sex: either extremely charismatic and attractive, or ascetic and forbidding of aspect.

And I can imagine which of the two Jason was before his accident.

Yet Jason claimed even those who were ascetic tended to attract women, as if the power they held made them more appealing than they would otherwise have been. Nevertheless, the kind of woman so attracted was the sort that Rose would have styled "an adventuress," for whom the forbidden was as potent an intoxicant as anything sold in China-town. Such a woman would have been willing to take part in a Work, but for this Work would likely be utterly unsuitable.

And proper ladies would be horrified at the very notion. Since this Work requires that the virgin be alert and speaking, rather than drugged or screaming in terror, I can see why it isn't attempted very often.

They were going to attempt to summon—or rather, cajole—a Unicorn.

Now, as Rose had come to understand, the medieval Unicorn she had seen so often in illustrations and tapestries, was not precisely what they were going to get, if they got anything at all. As she recalled them, Unicorns both medieval and earlier, at least in the versions from Europe and the ancient world, all had in common a single spiraling horn protruding from their foreheads, and did not otherwise much resemble each other. She had seen Unicorns pictured as both the size and general look of goats, as antelope-like, as horse-like, and even Unicorns that looked, if they could be said to resemble anything, like a strange mingling of cow and hippo. In some, the horn was gold, in others, a pearly white, and in some, of three colors, black at the base, red in the middle, and white at the tip. And all this was without bringing in the Chinese kirin, which looked more like a dragon, so far as she was concerned!

According to Jason, the Unicorn was an Elemental of a Fifth Element, that of the Spirit, and was the physical (if you could call an Elemental "physical") embodiment of Knowledge, Purity, and Wisdom. It had been known to appear as the medieval artists had painted it; it had also been known to appear as a prepubescent boy or girl in shining robes of white, as a burning bush, as a pure, white light, as a glowing cup, and as a white bird. It was shy and elusive, and yet curiously approachable, if one followed the proper procedure.

There were many kinds of Elementals inhabiting the realm of the Spirit; the Unicorn was just one, but it was one of the most accessible. But unlike the other four Elements, denizens of the Spirit realm could not be coerced, they could only be petitioned. If the Unicorn chose to appear, it would divulge only so much information as it cared to. This was probably another reason why Magicians did not rely on the Conjuration of the Unicorn as a major source of knowledge. Most Magicians did not care to conjure something they could not control. Conjuring a Unicorn was less like going to a shop and purchasing a book, and more like inviting a distinguished guest into one's home and hoping that pearls of wisdom would drop from his lips.

It is rather amazing that Jason has come to the point where he is actually willing to petition anything. He must be the most arrogant male I have ever met! The past few weeks had taught her a great deal about Jason Cameron, not the least of which was that his pride was his greatest fault as well as the cause of his downfall. In moments of extreme weakness, even he was willing to admit that, while still exhibiting pride in the fact! Nevertheless, she continued to find him just as intelligent and broad-minded as she had deduced from their conversations, and a certain amount of arrogance on his part was justified by his many accomplishments.

If I had done as much with my life as he has, perhaps I would be arrogant too. He has had a great deal of power, both Magickal and temporal, and people defer to him all the time. Perhaps that is why I amuse him; I do not. I must be something of a novelty to him. I wonder what he would say if he knew that I pity him? It would probably leave him speechless.

But the past few weeks had taught her a great deal about herself as well. She would never again allow herself to sink to the spiritual low where she had been willing to contemplate doing away with herself. For one thing, it was self-indulgent nonsense. For another, dealing with Cameron had shown her that a great deal could be gained simply by assuming that one would not be refused, and going ahead and pursuing what one wanted. Audacity often brought rewards; self-abasement seldom did.

She had been spending plenty of time with Cameron over these weeks. Paul du Mond had gone off to a position as Jason's agent in Oakland the week before Christmas. There had been no weeping on Rose's part, although the man had been uncommonly pleasant and polite with her. He had persisted in dropping those unsubtle hints that Cameron was not to be trusted, using real facts to bolster the case of something she felt in her heart was pure fabrication. That had made her very uncomfortable, but in the end it had been easier to pretend to agree with him, just so that he would leave her alone. She had promised him, just before he left, that the next time she was in the city, she would talk with one of his "friends," a promise she obviously did not intend to keep. With Paul du Mond gone, there had been no reason to maintain any kind of pretense about the close partnership she now had with Cameron; a great deal of energy and time that had been wasted in maintaining the charade was now free to devote to research and work. So much time was taken up now, that nearly the only time that Rose left the mansion was to make her twice-daily visits to Sunset, lest the poor horse pine away for lack of human contact.

At least the stallion now had some company. There was an old pony-gelding Jason had kept for harnessing to a small carriage—more like a plushly-appointed, covered cart—that du Mond had occasionally taken into Pacifica. Rose had persuaded Jason to allow her to bring this unlovely beast up to share Sunset's paddock rather than remaining in the smaller paddock nearby. Jason had feared that the fiery stallion might well attack and hurt the old gelding, but his fears had been entirely unfounded. Sunset was happy to see the poor old nag, and the old gelding was content to play squire to Sunset's knight. Now Sunset had some company and actually seemed much the tamer for it.

Rose had another notion about what could be done with the stallion—but that would wait until the New Year. Fortunately, that time was not far off, for tonight was Christmas Eve.

It had seemed rather strange to her that any procedure of Magick should take place on the very evening of the entire calender considered holiest, but Jason had assured her that the one time this Work had any chance of success was Christmas Eve. There had been a reason that the ancient Church had appointed this as the titular evening of the birth of Christ—it was a day of great power, marking the turning of the year, as Midsummer marked its opposite. "Many doors are open on that night," he had said cryptically.

Fine. So long as the "door" that we want is open as well, I shall not quarrel with the time.

So here she was—instead of being attired in her one new dress of the year, standing beside her father singing carols in the University Chapel, she was attired in a scandalous Bloomer outfit, on her hands and knees in a barren, slate-floored room, chalking diagrams she had a notion her old minister would have considered blasphemous on the floor. And yet, this was far more appropriate to the season than singing carols whose words had been debased to the level of the nursery, among the fat and complacent professors and their wives. Was this not the season of Hope and Renewal? And were they not searching for those very things, with Jason casting aside his arrogance long enough to actually beg for help?

She completed the last of the sigils in the outermost circle of the diagram, and sat back on her heels, critically comparing the chalked design to the one in her hand. A few paces behind her, Cameron was doing the same thing. She didn't think that he would find anything wrong—not unless he had somehow made a mistake on her copy. It was as perfect a copy as geometry could make it.

"I can't find a thing out of place," he said, finally, his ears twitching a little. "I don't wonder that your research papers were always well-received, if you put the same effort into them that you have into this."

She flushed with pleasure, and slowly got to her feet, taking care not to overbalance. As she straightened, she actually felt joints pop and muscles stretch out and uncramp. She winced. Oh, my knees!

But she showed no sign of discomfort. "Now what?" she asked.

"Now you go and change into your robe, while I set out the candles and the rest of the paraphernalia," he replied, and his mouth parted in what she now knew was a smile. "Don't be nervous. This will be very simple for you."

"I hope so," she replied, giving the room and its diagram one last examination, just to be certain they had not forgotten some small corner.

The center of the diagram was an immovable cube or table that looked suspiciously like an altar, made of white marble. Jason hadn't commented on the fact, but she had noted that a great many ceremonies seemed based on a religion, though not precisely Christianity, nor any other that she recognized. Cameron moved towards that, walking carefully along chalk-free paths that had been designed into the diagram, probably for that very purpose. In either hand he held a squat silver candlestick with a new beeswax candle in it, a creamy yellow candle as thick as her wrist. Candies of various colors also played major parts in the Work—as in religion. Curious. She moved back a little further, dusted her hands on the canvas Bloomers, and turned to leave the room.

When Jason said, "change into your robe," he meant a great deal more than that. There was an entire ritual she had to undertake before she put on the medieval-style loose gown of white silk, tied at the waist with a long belt of the same.

It began with a bath, but not just any kind of bath. She sifted a powder of various herbs over the water, and poured in a tiny carafe of fragrant oil before she took her place in the tub. When she emerged, she dried herself off and tied up her hair in a particular manner with a cord of white silk. Then she put on a simple set of underthings, brand new, and of unadorned white silk. She was not to wear a corset or stockings, and she anointed her temples, the hollow of her throat, and her wrists with sandalwood oil.

Then came the gown; it looked for all the world precisely like one out of a medieval Book of Hours, and it was made of a heavy white silk that she suspected was the literary "samite" that the Lady of the Lake was clothed in. The belt was totally unadorned in any way, and was wrapped three times around her waist before being tied in the front. The long fringed ends trailed down to the hem of her gown.

Altogether, she thought, as she surveyed the result in the mirror, I am glad that I have seen the whole of this Work, or I should begin to suspect that I was a sacrificial virgin. The effect was certainly "sacrificial." She expected at any moment to find that she was to be fed to a dragon!

Or—perhaps she would find herself carrying the Grail in a procession. The effect was just as ecclesiastic as it was sacrificial.

She probably should have felt immodest without the proper underthings, but the truth was that this gown was far more comfortable than anything of a modern nature, and she could not blame the women belonging to the Pre-Raphaelite movement for adopting such outlandish garb as their own. It was graceful, as well—and she certainly found it easier to breathe and move without a corset. The one drawback it had was that it was a trifle chilly; silk, however thick, was not as warm as wool. However, cotton or linen would have been chillier still, and that was what Jason had said that those of lesser means used for such robes. In fact, the two times before that he had performed this Work, when he had acted as the virgin for his own Master, his robe had been of plain, undyed cotton; she had found the first of those episodes outlined in his journal.

That had given her a great deal of peace of mind, for if he himself had undertaken her role, not once, but twice, that was a guarantee that she would come to no harm. Silly of her, perhaps, but she found it comforting.

Tonight she stood in the role of the Summoner, and the Summoner's clothing must be completely white, and made of a virgin fabric of non-animal origin. That meant it could not be woolen, leather, or made of any other animal hair or fur. The Petitioner—Jason wore whatever his normal Working attire was; apparently that did not matter, since the Unicorn would not be coming in answer to his presence. She had eaten nothing but vegetables for the past three days, and drunk nothing but water. Everything about her must be free of the taint of shed blood, everything must be pure and unbesmirched.

Actually, I look rather like something out of one of Lord Dunsany's fairy tales, she thought, as she turned before the mirror. The only thing that spoiled the effect was her glasses. One did not imagine the Queen of Elfland with a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of her nose. They cast the only jarring note in the whole image.

Well, too bad. If the Elven Princess had eyes as bad as Rose's, she would have worn spectacles! She certainly would not have had any choice in the matter, if she wanted to keep her lovely gowns intact and her white skin unbruised. If Rose had to do without her glasses, she would be falling over something every few minutes.

By now, Jason must be finished with his preparations, and waiting for her. She picked up the skirts of her gown and walked carefully out into the hall and down the stairs—barefoot as she was, her feet chilled quickly, and she discovered all manner of drafts and cold spots she had no idea existed.

Jason was waiting, but not as impatiently as she had thought be might be; looking around the Working Room, she saw that he had been very busy indeed.

The lamps on the wall had been extinguished, and the only light came from the special candles Jason had lit and placed around the room. The barren room itself had been transformed. The "altar" was swathed in white silk and wreathed in flowers from the conservatory, with the two silver candlesticks standing on either side of a silver bowl filled with water, which was also surrounded by flowers. There were four silver candlesticks standing waist-high, one at each of the four cardinal points of the diagram. These each upheld another thick, beeswax candle identical to the ones on the altar. Each of the candlesticks was twined with two garlands, one of ivy and one of flowers. Flower-petals carpeted the floor outside the diagram. Mingled flower-scents perfumed the air, which unfortunately was a bit chill.

Jason was barefoot, and wore a hooded robe of thick red velvet—the same robe he had worn the night she had first seen him. The hood was up, keeping his face in shadow, although his eyes glinted at her from the darkness. If she did not look at his hands or his feet, she could believe that there was only a normal man beneath that velvet. The shoulders beneath that robe were strong and broad, and the belt confined the velvet about a waist that was becomingly narrow. I wonder what he used to look like, she thought, idly. He is handsome enough now—I shouldn't wonder if he wasn't quite the dapper fellow then.

She waited for his approval of her preparations. He surveyed her from head to toe, then without warning, reached out and plucked the glasses from her face.

She uttered an inarticulate cry of protest; now he was nothing but a red blur in the candle-light. "Jason!" she said. "What are you doing? I'm blind without my spectacles!"

"Don't worry, I'll keep them safe in my pocket," he said, sounding amused. "You've read the Work; you know you can't wear them into the circle."

"But I can't see!" she complained. "How will I get to my place? How will I know if anything is happening?"

"As to the first, I'll guide you," he told her. "Just take my hand and step where I tell you. And hold your skirts up. As to the second, believe me, you will know if the Summoning works correctly."

Reluctantly, she gathered up her skirts in her left hand and gave him her right. His paw-hand felt very strange, hairy on the back and dry and hot on the front, and a tiny electric thrill ran up her spine when she touched it. This was the first time she had ever actually touched him—his flesh, and not the clothing that covered him. But she did not wince away; instead she concentrated on putting her feet precisely where he told her, somehow managing to avoid scuffing the laboriously-drawn chalk lines.

"There," he said, dropping her hand, then taking her shoulders and turning her until she faced the right direction. She knew it was the right direction by the white blob which was the altar in front of her. Now she stood in the center of a circle just in front of the altar and to the North of it. Jason let go of her shoulders and stepped away; by squinting she could just make out a red blur, moving along a complicated path that would eventually take him to an identical circle to the South of the altar.

Drat. I can't see a thing. I might just as well be blindfolded. The Unicorn, if it came at all, would materialize above the dish of water on the altar. And I won't be able to see it. She could see the altar itself as a squarish white shape, with two soft, yellow lights above it that were the flames of the candles, supported by two streaks of white that were the candles themselves. The bowl was an indistinct smear of silver against the white.

For the first time since she had seen him face-to-face, there were no Salamanders about. She dropped her skirts to pool around her bare feet, and clasped her hands before her. Jason did not bother to ask her if she was ready, since she obviously was; instead, he began to intone the sonorous Latin verses he had memorized. This was to set the conditions for the Unicorn, transforming the Work Room into a place fit for such a being to appear.

From the moment the first word left his mouth, it was clear that something was going to happen. The first indication was a feeling, a very physical feeling, the kind of electric tension she had felt before massive thunderstorms. Her skin tingled all over, and the scent of the flowers intensified. The air warmed, until she might have stood in the middle of a blooming meadow in high summer, rather than the stone-lined room in the middle of winter. Then, as she looked down for a moment, the lines of the diagram began to glow with a soft, bluish-white light, as if she had drawn them with foxfire instead of chalk. She could only make out those nearest her feet—and then only vaguely—but the increased light at the level of the floor told her that all the rest of the lines were glowing too. There was so much light in the room now that the odd effect of a sunlit meadow was intensified. If she closed her eyes, she would have sworn she heard the lazy drone of bees.

And yet, with all of this going on about her, there was no sensation within her of fear, or even apprehension. Instead, a wonderful calm came over her, and a deep and drowsy peace. There was a surety that she was utterly, completely safe and protected, and insensibly she relaxed as Jason continued to chant. I would be happy if this went on forever, she thought in dreamy content.

Without her glasses she really couldn't see what else might be going on, although she had the impression from the moving lights that appeared over key points in the diagram and from the bright haze appearing over the altar that a great deal of activity was taking place. If she hadn't felt so peaceful she would have been immensely frustrated and annoyed; this was why she absolutely hated being without her glasses! No matter how she squinted and strained, she could not make out a blessed thing. Drat. This is hardly fair. My first view of a major Work, and all I can see are moving lights and shadows. If I didn't know him better, I'd think he planned it this way.

Jason came to the last quatrain of the verses, and she woke out of her dreaming; now, if at all, would be a sign that the Unicorn would accept a tendered Summons. She concentrated on the thin, bright mist above the altar and held her breath, hoping for his sake that he was going to get more than just some pretty lights.

As the last few syllables fell from his lips, a deep hush dropped over the room, and it seemed as if everything paused a moment—there was a feeling of immanence, of something wonderful about to happen. The mist above the altar dimmed—then suddenly flared, brightly, and even without her glasses, she made out a bright oval there, as if it was a window into somewhere where everything was made of light.

Now it was her turn, the time to issue the Summons, which more properly might be termed an invitation. She called out her own quatrain, the invitation to the Unicorn to come to her, begging the gift of its presence and its immortal wisdom to enlighten her.

The mist dimmed and flared a second time. Then there was something bright and—as far as she could tell—solid in the heart of the mist. And that was all she could tell; she could not even make out what shape it bore. But her inner peace did not desert her, although she knew, in the back of her mind, that when this was all over, she was going to be very irked with Jason Cameron for taking her eyeglasses away from her, ceremony or not. There should have been some way to allow her to retain them!

"It has been a very long time since I last heard the call of a Summoner." The voice from the white, blurry shape above the altar was bell-clear, sweet, silvery, and sexless. It caressed her like a light breeze, and made her heart dance. "You are fair in my sight, and acceptable, dear maiden. I feast upon your purity, and grant you your request."

It was a good thing that she already knew that the Unicorn meant these things in a metaphorical sense, or she might have been seriously alarmed by that particular set of phrases. That is, she would have been alarmed if the peace imposed upon her from without had not been so all-pervasive. "I thank you for answering my Summons, and I rejoice in the presence of your beauty and purity, O Brightest One," she replied, in what she thought might be the correct response. "My request is that you answer the question of the Petitioner, the Firemaster who stands in the South, O Unicorn," she concluded, and she felt, rather than saw, that it had turned its attention away from her. Its regard was like a brilliant sunbeam; so intense that she had actually felt it as if it was a hand, touching lightly upon her skin.

"And what is your question—as if I need to ask?" it said, and she was surprised at the amount of irony in its tone. It had never occurred to her that a Unicorn would indulge in such a thing. "You must wish to know how to reverse your current condition. I cannot imagine that you would care to remain in the state that you are now, Firemaster."

"My question is, as you divined, O Immortal Wisdom, that you impart to me the means by which I can reverse my condition to that of my wholly human former aspect," Cameron said, his voice a little breathless, as if whatever it was he saw left him shaken and hesitant. That surprised her as much as the Unicorn's irony; surely Jason, who had participated in a Summoning twice before, had known what to expect! "If, indeed, those means exist, I beg you to tell me where I may find them."

"The means do exist, but I am limited in what I may tell you. I cannot give you the whole answer, but I can tell you that it lies within a manuscript that is within your grasp, though not your possession," the Unicorn replied promptly. "It is no more than a few miles distant from this spot, and in the hands of someone you know."

"Who?" Jason gasped. "Where? Please, I beg you—"

The Unicorn interrupted him, and now the tone of its voice was stern and unyielding. "I cannot tell you more, and do not press me—you have brought this state upon yourself, as you are well aware, out of over-reaching pride and arrogance, and it has been judged that you must win free of it wholly by your own efforts, if at all."

Those clear, bright tones were utterly without pity, and Rose felt very sorry for Jason. Bad enough to know that was the case, but to hear it from such a being—that was hard, hard indeed.

The light above the altar brightened, and Rose's eyes began to water in reaction. And yet, at the same time, she could not bring herself to look away. The light drew her, even as it became impossible to watch.

"I have fulfilled your request, O maiden," it said, in a voice of deep formality, and she felt its calm regard pressing upon her again. "I thank you for the Summons, and for the feast. And now—fare you well."

There was no sound, nothing to mark the moment that it departed. The light simply vanished so abruptly that the room seemed dark in comparison. She rubbed her eyes, which were still watering, and suddenly realized that she felt physically drained and exhausted, as if she had been working very hard for most of the day. And she wanted to see, so badly she shook with the need for clear sight. She reached out her hands, impotently groping for her spectacles, even though she knew that Cameron had them.

Jason was at her side before she realized it, as if he understood all too well her fear of sightlessness—of course, he had been only a few feet away, and no longer needed to worry about erasing the chalk-marks by striding directly across to her. "Here," he said, pressing the spectacles into her hand, as if he had sensed how imperative her need for sight was. "Are you tired?"

"Very," she admitted, fumbling the spectacles into place, and seeing the room leap into focus again with a surge of relief. I would rather almost anything than not be able to see....

"It was the Unicorn, I think—" His voice sounded thoughtful. "I did not experience this myself, but the Unicorn I Summoned was not as powerful as this one, and it never said a word about a 'feast.' I believe that his 'feasting' was not entirely metaphorical, that he 'fed' upon your spiritual energy."

"My what?" she gasped, She turned to him with alarm, and he made a soothing motion.

"Don't worry, this has happened to me with other creatures, just not a Unicorn. I promise you, he hasn't taken anything irreplaceable; by his nature, he can't. In fact, he didn't take it at all; if you think about your quatrain, you offered it to him as a free gift. But energy has to come from somewhere, as the mathematicians say, and very often the Elementals find the energy we produce preferable to their normal fare." He chuckled a little. "Perhaps the reason that my Unicorn never 'feasted' upon my energies was that I was not sufficiently pure for it. You were obviously more to its taste."

"I suppose I should feel flattered," she said, hesitantly. "And if it really hasn't harmed me—"

"It hasn't," he reassured her. "You'll feel better after a short rest and a little food of less ephemeral nature."

She sighed, and gathered up her skirts. He offered her his hand in a particularly gallant gesture.

"You performed wonderfully, my dearest Rose; stronger Apprentices than you would have bolted from the room at the first signs of the Manifestation. I am very proud of you." He chuckled a little. "If my lady would care to return to the study with me, I believe my Salamanders have brought us just what we need." She sensed, rather than saw, that he smiled, and she was a little surprised that he should offer her so much physical contact. Heretofore he had avoided it, perhaps sensitive to his own appearance. She took the proffered hand, and once again felt that tiny electric shock pass between them. But this time, his paw-hand no longer felt so odd holding hers. She decided not to be annoyed with him. It might have been just as well that she could not see; if she had, she might have been too tongue-tied to make the proper responses.

Once they were inside the door of the study, he dropped her hand and plucked a warm and heavy brown plush cape from a hook beside the door. "I thought you might be cold after all that," he said, handing it to her, as he hesitated a moment, then resolutely pulled the hood of his robe back down onto his shoulders. "And there are two pairs of slippers warming beside the fire. I think you will know which pair is yours."

She wrapped the cape around herself, grateful for the warmth, and went over to the fire. It did not take the mind of a genius to deduce which pair of sheepskin-lined slippers were hers; she doubted that he could squeeze his feet into the smaller of the two, nor would he likely sport a pair of woolen slippers embroidered with white roses. She bent to pull them both on her half-frozen feet, and took her accustomed seat on the sofa, curling her legs up underneath her, just as the clock above the mantelpiece chimed midnight.

A moment later, he joined her, seating himself in a chair across from her, followed by a levitating table and floating tray, each accompanied by an attendant Salamander. The latter held covered dishes and service for two, and she was not at all loath to see them.

"A Christmas Eve dinner of the English sort for you, my lady," he said gravely, "courtesy of the Palace Hotel. Beef Wellington, roast carrots and potatoes, and plum pudding, of course. I can flame the latter, if you would like, but that is a custom I don't particularly care for. I've never found it improved the flavor of a dish, and it often makes sweets so hot that one runs the risk of burning ones mouth."

"I believe I'll decline," she replied cheerfully. "I think we have quite enough flame as it is." She waved her hand at the Salamanders, who danced in response to her sally.

He handed her a plate without further comment; his dinner, as usual, was rare (or raw) meat. It no longer disturbed her to see him consume it, since he had taken to cutting it up and eating it in a civilized manner. She had hot spiced cider to drink—probably a wiser choice than wine, as tired as she was. Again, as usual, he had a glass of milk, and a cup of Master Pao's tea.

Meat at last! I thought I was going to perish of longing for it before the three days were over!

She was too hungry to press him for his reaction to the result of their efforts, but as soon as she polished off the last of the plum pudding, and poured herself a second glass of the cider, she saw that he had finished his own dinner and was regarding her with an expectant air.

"Well?" she said. "Was it worth the effort?"

He nodded, slowly. "Quite worth the effort," he replied. "I was astonished at the strength of the apparition, to be frank. The ones that I Summoned appeared for only a moment or two, uttered a few cryptic words, and vanished again. This Unicorn practically engaged us in conversation, and it very clearly gave us all the information it was permitted to give us."

"Permitted by whom?" she asked. "That was what I wanted to know."

He shrugged. "When one deals with creatures like the Unicorn, one acknowledges the fact that there are higher powers ruling them. What those powers are, I have never attempted to discover. Because they are burdened, or gifted, with more knowledge than we, they are constrained more directly by those higher powers than mere mortals."

He stared down into his cup, and she said nothing, remembering what else the Unicorn had said. Finally, he shook his head, and looked up again.

"The important thing is that we know now that there is a solution to my problem, and what is more, the Unicorn made a very significant omission." He swirled the tea in his cup and drank the rest of it down, with his usual grimace. "Yes, it said that the means to reverse my condition existed in a manuscript. But it did not say that we would be unable to deduce those same means from our own researches, if we put enough effort into the task."

She bit her lip, and looked into his eyes. "You're right," she agreed. "What is more, it did say that you would find your answer by your own efforts, if at all. But are you not going to pursue the manuscript?"

"There is no reason why I cannot do both," he pointed out. "I can send out inquiries, while you and I continue to research. We can take whatever means presents itself first."

She nodded, feeling a great deal more comfortable with that solution. "I can't help thinking that in concentrating on this manuscript, we might be chasing a wild goose," she confessed. "When you think that it might be in the hands of some antiquarian you know, someone who has no idea of the significance of what he has—someone who would just laugh at you if you even suggested the possibility of Magick—"

"That's all too possible," he agreed. "And now we know the most important part of any such secret."

"Such as?" she asked, stifling a yawn.

"We know the answer exists. We did not know that for certain before." He seemed very cheerful of a sudden, and his cheer infected her.

"That's true." she wondered if this was the right time to present him with her Christmas gift to him, and decided that it couldn't hurt. Better to give it to him now, while he still felt cheerful! That way, if he didn't like it, he would at least feel constrained to pretend that he did. If she gave it to him while he was in a bad mood, he might hurl it across the room in a fit of temper. He'd hurled other objects in her presence before—his temper could be as black and stormy as the worst tornado-weather, and she suspected the if he ever gave free rein to it, that temper could wreak just as much damage.

She beckoned to one of the Salamanders while his back was turned for a moment, putting a few logs on the fire, and whispered her request to it. It vanished, and came back in through the door a moment later with her wrapped package, just in time for him to see it as he turned back around.

"What's this?" he asked, puzzled, as the Salamander brought the package directly to him.

"I took the liberty of getting you a Christmas gift, Jason," she said, and surprised herself by blushing. "I hope you don't think me presumptuous. It isn't much—I don't know if you'll like it—but I thought of you when I saw it—"

He continued to stand beside the fire, staring at her, the package cradled carefully in both paws. "But I didn't get anything for you, Rose—" he stammered, as taken aback as if no one had ever brought him a present before. "How can I possibly accept this?"

"Gifts aren't given with the intent that the giver expects a gift in return, Jason," she replied, astonished that he would think that she expected a gift from him. "They're given because the giver thinks they might please the recipient—if you like it, I'll be quite rewarded enough by that. You don't have to get me anything. Everything I own now is something you gave me! I just thought this might grant you a little pleasure. Please," she prompted. "Open it."

He walked slowly to his seat, sat down carefully, and began, hesitantly, to open the package. She had taken special care to wrap it so that it would be easy for him to extract the box from the brightly colored paper and ribbons—no mean feat, so far as that went. She was rather proud of her wrapping job.

At length the box sat on the table, in its nest of shredded wrapping. He looked up at her, as if he had never seen her before, then slowly opened the box itself.

He stared down into it, then with trembling paws, reached inside and brought out the carved stone Phoenix.

The carnelian from which it had been made caught the firelight beautifully, seeming to glow from deep within. It could have been poured from liquid embers. She was altogether pleased with the effect—and with the statue itself. She had been afraid that in his study here, surrounded by all his expensive art objects, it would look shabby. In fact, it looked very much as if it belonged here.

He stared at it, and touched its carved surface gently. "This—this is magnificent," he stammered. "It's wonderful! Rose, you couldn't have chosen anything likely to please me more, and I haven't a single notion how you managed to deduce what I would like so accurately. What—what can I possibly say?"

"You might try, 'Thank you, Rose,'" one of the Salamanders said, impudently.

He shot a glare at it, but his expression softened as he turned back to her. "Thank you, Rose," he said softly. "Thank you very much."

"You're welcome, Jason," she replied demurely, not even trying to hide her smile of pleasure. "You are very welcome. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to have pleased you. Merry Christmas."

"And it is," he said, with a touch of surprise and delight. "It really is! The first time I have truly been able to say that in a very long time."

"Despite everything?" she asked, sipping her cider.

"Because of everything." He looked away from her for a moment, into the fire, and when he spoke, it was with the sense that he was revealing something he had not told to anyone else, ever. "Since I became an adult, my holidays have been spent either in the company of people I cared very little about, or alone. This is the first time that is not the case. It is the first time I have ever been given a gift without strings attached to it. I have hope now, which is something I have done without since the accident. There is literally nothing I would change about this moment, and that is not something I have ever been able to say."

"'Remain, for thou art fair?"' she said, quoting Faust with awry smile and a faint laugh. "You should be glad that I am not Mephistopheles, or your soul would be mine."

He opened his mouth, as if to reply to that, then shut it again. She wondered what he had been about to say, for his face bore a very peculiar expression, one that she could not begin to decipher.

"Let me tell you what it was that you missed, being without your spectacles," he said, abruptly, and began to describe the events of the Summoning so vividly that she forgot that odd, yearning expression completely.

At least, she forgot it until she protested, laughingly, that she was too weary to stay up any longer, and he accompanied her to her very door, as if he was a gallant swain escorting his lady home. Then, as she turned back to bid him good-night, she surprised that expression on his face again.

And if she had not been as exhausted as she claimed, she would very likely have remained awake for hours, trying to decide what, precisely, it had meant. But tonight she had no choice in the matter; sleep claimed her the moment her head touched the pillow, and in the morning, she could not remember what had puzzled her so.