From the Ashes of Victory: The Complete Series, page 131
part #0 of From the Ashes of Victory Series
Katya thumbed her temples in little circles, after all this and the night she'd had, she was going to need a nap, or more likely, a vial of Ivy's tea to make it the rest of the day. "Do you have any good news for us?"
Pretoria brightened immediately. "In fact, I do." She gestured for the two heads of EVE to follow her to the desk nestled in the corner of the Hall. It was a nice desk, one more suited for an office than what could end up looking like a war zone inside of a week or two, but it was the one Pretoria had learned to write at. Besides its sentimental value, it was there as an inspiration to her students, as well: everyone had to start somewhere. Katya hoped Clara had gotten a good look at it.
Sliding open the centre drawer, Pret produced a cream-coloured envelope with 'Sara and Allie' written on the front. "Ed's girls are turning six next week, and as their godmother, it is my pleasure to ask you to sign the card."
Time was suddenly a tangible thing, and it sat thick and heavy on Katya's shoulders. Edith Baker was one of EVE's earliest success stories, yet hadn't let her active, continuing practice of magic dissuade her from starting a family for a second.
"Already?" Katya said, though it had come out somewhat more pathetically than she'd intended. They would be starting school this year! They couldn't do that, they were just babies!
"Yep. Can you believe it?"
"Do I look like I can?"
Pret smiled. "It's okay. It'll fade when they start to look like us. That does remind me though, have you thought of what you're going to tell the parents when they see for themselves that EVE's headmistresses look the same age as their daughters?"
"Flattery and a joke is usually enough," Katya said.
The girls themselves knew, but it was deadly serious for them. Active witches aged at a fraction of the rate of normal, which meant they would far outlive any male children they had, and any girls who didn't carry the Talent (or chose not to exercise it). It was a heady concept to convey, and had scared more than a few off of magic entirely.
Signing the card with well-wishes for the girls and Edith, Katya made her way back to her office feeling as though she'd aged faster in the last hour.
Finding the door ajar when they returned did nothing to help.
The look she shared with Vita was truly shared this time, and plasma filled Katya's hands. Being surrounded by fences, barbed wire and dogs was only enough until it wasn't. But the moment Katya actually focussed a mind gone briefly addled, she could feel the pressure of a Manifest awaiting them inside.
Had Carice arrived already? It wasn't like her at all to be ahead of schedule…
"You two really went and did it," said an Irish brogue.
Vita pushed past Katya and burst through the doorway. "You're back! Where's Millie?"
"Where she should be. I reckon she didn't get much sleep last night," Niamh said dryly, pushing herself up from Vita's chair, the only one that could see both windows and the door.
"Why didn't you say anything when you got home?" Katya asked as the head of EVE inquiring about one of its members. The relieved friend was shouting loudly through the expression on her face.
"Because I did sleep last night. Only the Furies knew when we got home, and that's just 'cause we had to show them our faces so they wouldn't tear 'em off. Jesus lord they've gotten big," Niamh said, shaking her head in disbelief.
Though Niamh's witchblade could cut through just about anything, 'to the point' was even more vulnerable to the look on Vita's face. "So Elise knows, then."
"Elise knows," Niamh said.
Vita held Niamh's grey eyes unwaveringly. "I needed to hear you say it."
"I know you did. Millie is home safe with Elise, Victoria." Niamh's smile faded briefly as she held a knowing look with Vita. In an instant, however, it returned, having redoubled in size and luminosity. "Or Doctor Ravenwood, as the fancy lettering on the door tells me. Bloody hell, I am so proud of you." Niamh crossed the room with the speed that made her so dangerous to wrap her arms around Vita in an embrace that still made Katya smile. The two had been all but estranged for years over what had happened to Colette in the asylum, but thanks to their mutual concern over Millie, every reunion now was another shovel of dirt over that hatchet.
"Thank you," Vita managed when she was released, re-straightening her necktie.
"I like the hair. She do that?" Niamh asked, tossing a thumb at Katya.
"Thank you. She did," Vita said.
"Hi, Kat. Nice work." Niamh leaned in for her second hug. It was like being crushed by a python made of corded steel.
"How did it go?" Katya asked when she could draw breath again.
Niamh's demeanour shifted completely in the time it took to blink. Whatever friendly witch had been there was replaced with the ferocious, embattled warrior. So grave were her features that Katya suddenly felt she'd just seen Niamh happy for the last time. She took a shuddering breath, her head giving a twisted jerk so swift her neck popped. "I'll give you the short version, but Josephine is still looking into some things for us. We'll brief you fully when we find out what she uncovers. And when Millie's ready."
Katya shared a look of alarm with Vita, which did not go unnoticed.
"Let her get her head straight first."
As Victoria strode across the airfield to meet the Longs, she had to resist the urge to march straight over to the old house instead. Millie was safely ensconced inside with Elise, and Victoria would have to content herself with that. They had yet to emerge since Millie's return, but to rush them would be not only rude but counterproductive, regardless of Victoria's need to be reunited with her Coven. They hadn't all three of them been together since Christmas, but the only thing either Millie or Victoria had been truly thankful for then was uninterrupted sleep, which wasn't nearly as jolly as champagne or Christmas crackers.
Right now it was June, as far as it could be from Christmas, and entirely too warm for thoughts of winter to last very long before they melted away into the drifts of memory again.
This was unfortunately not true of her nightmare, which still smouldered like a cinder in the back of her mind. More than a second's thought about it would act as a bellows, and in the glowing fires of hateful rememberance she would be forced to see Katya in that chair, a gleaming spike arrowing for her face.
No, Victoria thought. It was just a dream, like all the others.
Except the first time.
Lest she slip beneath the waters of self-reflection and drown, she quickened her pace, harrying towards the safety of the two figures awaiting her at the base of The Shed.
"Welcome home, Doctor Ravenwood," Eustacia Long said, gathering Victoria into a maternal embrace that left the older woman blinking away how much pleasure she'd taken in finally being able to say those words.
"We could not be prouder of you," her sister Ophelia said.
"Thank you. I could not have done it without your support," Victoria replied, returning the embraces of the true mothers of EVE with warmth and enthusiasm.
Ophelia stepped back, clasping her hands in front of her. "In spite of us making it more difficult for you, too. Not many would choose to spend their summer holidays giving input into aircraft engine designs. That would be a career to most people."
"It's harder for most people," Victoria said without a trace of pride or smugness. It was true. Most people couldn't pull an internal combustion apart and put it back together with their minds, or measure efficiency and power output by pure observation. They certainly couldn't look inside while it was operating. But if teenage Victoria, poring over every word and schematic in her careworn copies of the Longs' books, had been told that she would one day be giving them advice, she would have been happy beyond rational thought. To learn that she did it as a side project measured in minutes would only have made her wonder what had become of her life.
Sometimes, it still did.
"And we are grateful for that." Eustacia shared a knowing glance with her sister. "We have another trophy for the collection thanks to you."
Victoria's ears perked up. "Oh? I hadn't heard about this."
"It hasn't been announced yet. We won the Cardington again."
"That's wonderful!" Victoria exclaimed, clapping her hands in girlish contrast to her age and appearance. "When will it be made public?"
"At the beginning of next month."
The Cardington Trophy for Excellence in British Aeronautics was the most coveted award in the industry, and so hard to get that it wasn't even awarded every year. Of the seven times it had been since its creation in 1920, the Longs had won six.
"The Orteig Prize, the Calloway, the Eddington… quite the run of successes," Eustacia said pointedly to Victoria.
"My input would have meant nothing if you and your staff hadn't given me a foundation to start from. To say nothing of actually fabricating the results."
"Your modesty is infuriating sometimes. We don't own all of those speed and distance records without you," said Ophelia.
"And Titania doesn't fly itself across the Atlantic without Amy's skill and courage." Three years on, and the idea of flying from Paris to New York alone without stopping still made Victoria's mouth go dry. A witch could do impossible things because she had magic to do them with. The Long's chief test pilot had done it with a compass and a map in a completely unproven prototype, and now she was rightfully a national hero. The little silver monoplane she'd flown was already so iconic it was currently sitting in the courtyard of the British Museum, and had helped set new daily attendance records every day the first week it was available for public viewing.
"Do you know where Juno IV is right now?" Ophelia asked. "Tokyo."
"Already?"
"Yes. At this rate, it will smash Juno III's record by five days," Eustacia said.
"So you'll excuse us for wanting you to wear those laurels a little longer. We thought showing you the possible source of our next triumph might help, while we have the chance."
The three of them shared more amiable chit-chat about the last few months as they made their way along a sheer vertical wall, now a dark forest green. In spite of the relatively recent repainting, the wood itself had aged, all of the standing fibres worn smooth by rain and wind. There was moss growing in the cracks of the concrete apron in front, which was splotched with the stains of oil and other mechanical fluids. It was hard to believe it had ever been pristine.
The Longs showed signs of age as well, more than Victoria remembered seeing at Christmas. There were quite a few more strands of silver threaded within their dark brown hair, now permanently tied up into tight buns. The lines around their mouths and eyes were more pronounced, and Eustacia wore wire-frame spectacles constantly.
Whether it stood out to Victoria because she was a witch, or because she saw them so infrequently, she couldn't say. She just knew that it was only the first of many encounters with the ravages of time she was going to face in her life, and she was not at all eager to get started so soon.
Whatever toll time had exacted from their features, however, the sisters' enthusiasm remained undiminished, and they moved with energy as they herded Victoria towards what was now the only official entrance. It was made of inch-thick steel.
"I think you'll approve of what we've done with the place," Ophelia said.
"I don't doubt that," Victoria replied without bothering to try to hide the excitement that was fizzing away within her.
The Shed, even though it was no longer a home for clandestine magic, was still full of secrets, and being led in told her that they were even more closely guarded than EVE's had been. Magic secrets couldn't be replicated by non-witches, Manifested ones not at all.
Aircraft were entirely different. The domination of the industry the Longs had sprinted out to could only be maintained by continued innovation and experimentation, and The Shed was now the beating heart of that endeavour.
Victoria was about to see the bleeding edge of what was possible in aircraft design, and she shivered with the little thrill that spidered up her bare neck as Eustacia slotted keys into three different locks.
"We've been toying with new names for it. What do you think of The Forge?" Ophelia asked.
"Short for Valkyrie's Forge," her sister supplied.
"I quite like it," Victoria said. "Considerably more dramatic than The Shed."
"Not just the building. The entire R&D department. We're having logos mocked up at the moment."
The door swung open to reveal another door. Above it, on the opposite wall, were a string of bright red capital letters:
THIS DOOR TO REMAIN CLOSED AT ALL TIMES!
"Good afternoon, Miss Long. Miss Long. Doctor Ravenwood," said the room's only occupant, a young woman sat behind a perfectly nondescript desk. The gun at her side was considerably more descript; a semi-automatic pistol that looked like it could stop any elephant bent on industrial espionage.
"Good afternoon, Esther. Any news?" Ophelia asked.
"None to report. Just a normal day."
"Hello, Esther," Victoria said. One of EVE's original apprentices, she had given up on magic to pursue a more traditional, stable life working for the Longs. Though Victoria was happy that another young woman had found her future in Longstown, it still felt as though EVE had failed her somehow. Though it wasn't their job to make someone like magic, it still stung to know that one of their apprentices had turned her back on it completely. Not everyone, however, reacted positively to the idea of living long enough to bury their children. "How is your family?"
"Very well, thank you."
"How old is your son now?"
"Seven," Esther said, her eyes twinkling with delight. "And Dotty will be three next month."
"Already?" Ophelia asked.
"Yes, ma'am. By the by, she told me the other day that she adores the day care centre. I think she is quite taken with Mistress Ivy's stories."
Whatever Esther's reasoning for leaving EVE, the fact she still referred to Ivy as 'Mistress' meant she hadn't forgotten everything, at least.
"As anyone would be, I expect. I may have to drop in some time," Ophelia said.
"I'm sure the children would like that. Here's the log," Esther said.
Once the three of them had signed in, Eustacia gestured to the interior door. "After you, Doctor."
Inside was just as expansive as Victoria remembered, the ceiling impossibly far away, the concrete she strode across still bearing the discolouration of magical experimentation. The combination pantry and storage room had been dismantled, given over to work benches and tool chests.
She was led past Atlas, the word's largest and fastest four-engine aircraft. It still looked like a moose to Victoria, albeit an extremely shiny one, though at the moment its innards were hanging out as it underwent maintenance following its trip to France with Millie and Niamh.
Beyond Atlas and other prototypes in various states of construction and deconstruction, towards the 'back' of the Shed where Victoria used to have her practice space, was something entirely new: a wall. In fact it was four walls; an entire building had been erected within the larger Shed, yet apart from it, standing separate in the centre.
Victoria was admitted through the person-sized door beside what looked like an ordinary garage door into utter blackness.
"Just a moment," Ophelia said from behind. "And don't cheat with magic."
Suppressing a grin, Victoria did as she was bade and waited until the crack of the breaker being flipped snapped across the empty void and back again, filling the building-within-a-building with dim orange light that swiftly brightened to something practical.
The moment her eyes adjusted, Victoria's eyebrows raced each other for her hairline.
On a stand was a long cylinder laid out horizontally, festooned with wires, pipes and cable. Both ends were open, one of them into a decreasing radius, like a cone with the point cut off. It was hideously complicated and wonderfully mechanical, even if there were no visible moving parts. Nearly all of it was composed of metal alloys Victoria had never before encountered, and the most inquisitive parts of her mind seized control of her Manifest to leap upon this entirely-new conundrum with abandon.
She took no pains to hide her enthusiasm as she raced up to the device and began boring into it with magic to extract every last bit of information she could.
"Induction fan, compressor blades, all on a single shaft… into a gas turbine… is this…?"
Ophelia and Eustacia shared the same look of absolute pride, their smiles enormous as they took well-earned pleasure in confirming Victoria's insinuation.
"A turbojet engine," Ophelia said.
Victoria gasped and took a step back so she could take in the entire thing at once. Moving around to the front, she peered into the air inlet and could just make out the glint of the workings within. All she could see visibly was a wall of blades so tightly packed together it looked more like a solid disc lined with odd shadows than a fan.
"This was a drawing only a few months ago. Entirely hypothetical. Does it function?" Victoria asked.
Eustacia paced around her creation with obvious reverence. "It's a temperamental beast and not without its teething problems, but we've run it up several times without it tearing itself apart or blowing up. You may notice all the soundproofing in here?"
Victoria tore her attention away from the astonishing device to see the walls covered in panels of varying shapes, from corrugated to something akin to an egg crate.
"We call it the Banshee, if you want some idea as to the sound it makes. Not something you can keep completely secret for long anyway, but we want it in the air by Christmas."
"Surely not! The metallurgy alone should have taken a decade to get within acceptable parameters," Victoria said.
"Yes, well, when you have an atomic alchemist as a consultant, miracles become achievable goals," Ophelia said.
"I only provided a roadmap to what could be done."
