Lily (19 page)

‘She’s never married then? There isn’t a king?’

Daniel shook his head. ‘No, her younger sister is the heir, Princess Lucasta.’

‘Lily…’

A whisper behind her. Lily stopped suddenly, her legs wobbling. There was something awful in Georgie’s voice, even though it was so quiet she’d hardly heard it. ‘What is it?’ She threw her arms round Georgie. Her sister was so pale she’d gone grey, like a stone child.

‘Look.’ Georgie nodded very faintly towards the other side of the road. There was a dark spot among the holiday finery of the crowd, a figure swathed in black, its head turning slowly from side to side.

‘Marten,’ Lily and Georgie breathed together, and then Henrietta snapped at Lily’s ankles.

‘Go. Go! But don’t run.’

‘Who is it?’ Daniel hissed.

‘Move. We’ll tell you later. Slowly, slowly, don’t let her notice us.’ Lily grabbed his hand, and hauled Georgie along with an arm around her waist. ‘We have to get back to the theatre. Quickly!’

‘So what was all that about?’ Daniel asked, as they stumbled in through a backstage door, and hurried to his office. ‘Who was that woman in the black dress?’

Lily exchanged a look with Georgie as she stuffed her sister into the balding old armchair. Should they tell him everything?

‘Yes.’ Henrietta nudged her ankle. ‘Tell him. I promise you, he smells good. You can trust him.’

Georgie nodded, staring at her feet. ‘He should know what he’s hiding in his theatre. What might be coming.’

‘What’s going on?’ Daniel crouched down next to Georgie, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘Is this to do with your mother stealing your magic? Is that why you’re so frightened of her? I mean, this sounds as though it’s more than just her wanting you back because she misses you.’

Lily laughed, and then put her hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry. We think she’s plotting against the queen. Georgie has been…’

‘Enchanted,’ Georgie muttered.

‘But we don’t know why. She’s been angry with Georgie for so long, because the spells weren’t working properly. We think Mama was going to kill her, and start trying to use me instead.’

‘What for?’ Daniel asked, looking appalled.

‘We think they want to make us into a magical weapon,’ Lily explained. Then she added in a whisper, ‘So they can assassinate the queen.’

Daniel swallowed slowly. ‘Ah. With one of those flame things Georgie threw at me, the day we met?’

Everyone stared at Georgie, who shook her head miserably. ‘I still don’t know what it was that I did!’ Then she sighed. ‘But I didn’t mean to, whatever it was. It took me over. I thought we’d escaped, Lily, but she’s still got me, hasn’t she? Since we’ve been away from Merrythought, I’ve felt free again. But that was stupid. She’s controlling me, somehow.’ She leaned back against the wall, her skin still greyish and her eyes stone-like. ‘I’ll never get away.’

‘We’ll take the spell off.’ Lily’s voice was firm, but she couldn’t meet her sister’s eyes. She couldn’t trust her face to look as though she believed what she was saying. Georgie wasn’t in control of her own magic, and Lily hardly knew any. How could they possibly defeat such an expert magician as their own mother? ‘Perhaps when we find Father, he can do it…’

Georgie shook her head again. ‘No. I have to hide better.’ She stared at her hands, as though she hated them. ‘If only I could get rid of my magic,’ she whispered. ‘Then Mama wouldn’t want me any more.’ She looked up, a spark of hope in her eyes. ‘If we both did, Lily, then we’d be useless. They’d never find us, Mama and Marten. I’m sure it’s the magic Marten’s hunting for.’

‘Are you safe here?’ Daniel asked anxiously. ‘Couldn’t you do one of those glamour spells, like the first time I saw you?’

Georgie’s stony eyes softened with tears. ‘You don’t understand. It’s our magic she’s tracking. Our mother’s servant, Marten. That woman in black. I think she can sniff out magic, especially mine, because it’s all been shaped – twisted – by Mama! She knows what it smells like!’ She scratched at her hands hatefully. ‘I wish I could tear it out of me. Lily, you have to help me. And we should take yours too, then even if they find us Mama won’t want us back!’

Lily glared at her. ‘We can’t get rid of it, Georgie, we don’t know how! And even if we could I wouldn’t want to – I’ve only just got it, and I love it! It’s mine, it’s part of me!’

‘I used to feel like that…’ Tears spilled out of Georgie’s eyes, and Lily threw her arms around her sister.

‘When we break the spell you will again. For now, just don’t use your magic, it’s safer that way.’

‘We’ll hide you somehow,’ Daniel muttered, looking worriedly around the room, as though he expected Marten to materialise from behind the curtains. ‘I won’t let anyone steal you away.’

Lily watched critically as Georgie rose up into the air. The new dress that Daniel had sweet-talked Maria into running up at the last minute fell floatily from a high waistband, and it trailed down on either side of her body, wafting dramatically, the little embroidered silver stars glittering.

Daniel was conjuring her higher and higher, beckoning her on, with sweeps of his long fingers.

‘That’s as far as she goes, Mr Daniel!’ a loud voice yelled from behind the curtains.

Daniel’s mystical gestures stopped abruptly. ‘That’s fine. I wouldn’t be able to reach her if she were much higher anyway. Lily, remind me to talk to Signor Lucius about the music, there’s a bit of squeaking from the mechanism, he’s going to need flutes playing during this part, just in case.’

‘Can I get down yet?’ Georgie asked plaintively. ‘This board is really hard.’ They had been rehearsing the new trick since Sam had finished building the mechanism, the day after the Coronation parade, and their sighting of Marten. Lily and Georgie had thrown themselves into the work, glad to think about something else, but after two solid days of pretending to be in a trance, Georgie was becoming mutinous.

‘How are you going to prove that there isn’t something behind the curtain lifting her?’ Lily demanded. ‘I don’t think it’s going to be hard for people to work it out.’

‘Aha!’ Daniel darted into the wings and came back with a child’s hoop, the kind that Lily had seen little boys bowling through the park when she had gone exploring. ‘Watch! Oh, and tonight, Lily, when I snap my fingers, can you bring this out to me? Now look… Remember the audience don’t know that we’ve let down the extra curtain this far forward, they’ll think this is the back of the stage. See the hoop?’ He held it up in one hand, passing it slowly, surely, all round Georgie, wafting it suspensefully around her, and staring out into the imaginary audience with dark, brooding eyes.

Lily came closer. ‘Do it again,’ she asked, puzzled, and Daniel laughed, and passed the hoop around Georgie’s wafting skirts once more.

‘Hurry up!’ Georgie moaned. ‘I’ve got the most dreadful crick in my neck.’

‘Did you see?’

‘Has it got a hole in it, so the bar can get through?’ Lily asked, staring suspiciously at the hoop.

‘No! But if you think that, perhaps I should pass it into the audience first, so they can test it, that might add a little something.’ He scribbled a note to himself. ‘Watch again.’

‘Oh!’ Lily laughed, genuinely impressed. ‘I saw it that time, Daniel, that’s really clever. I would have sworn blind that you passed it all round her!’

Daniel made her a little bow. ‘Yes, yes, I’m sorry, Georgie. Bring her down, Sam. So. You think it’ll work, as our grand finale?’

Georgie sat up, wriggling her shoulders. ‘Did I really look as though I was floating?’

Lily nodded. ‘It was very impressive. Even better with music, and that special mist stuff, I should think. But Daniel, if this is to be the grand finale, what happens to Lydia’s fairyland song?’

Daniel bit his lower lip. ‘Mmm. That’s my next job. Breaking it to Mrs Lacey that little Lydia’s contract specifies she’s allowed the final song – and she’ll have it.’ He grinned slyly at Lily. ‘Well, I don’t sing. Do you?’

‘She’ll spifflicate you…’ Lily whispered. It was one of Sam’s young apprentice Ned’s favourite words, and although Lily wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, she liked it.

Daniel shrugged. ‘After the reaction from the audience the last three nights, and the reviews we’ve had, she hasn’t a leg to stand on.’

Lily nodded. He was right, but Lydia and her mother would never admit it. She decided that after the performance tonight, she would ask Georgie how to cast a protection spell. Maria had told them some dreadful stories about jealousy in the theatre, after she’d found Georgie in tears when Lydia had caught her alone, and mercilessly demolished the dancing she did in their act. Lily had no intention of letting Lydia get away with any of those sort of tricks. Jamming a pin down inside one of Georgie’s greasepaint sticks was just the sort of thing she could imagine Lydia trying. And the little toad would be gushingly sympathetic when Georgie tore a scratch across her cheek.

‘Come on. We need to clear the stage. We sent everyone away so we could rehearse this, remember, and they’re all fretting. People want a last run-through before tonight.’ A wide, fake smile spread across Daniel’s face as a large figure barrelled its way down the aisle like a rhinoceros. In a corset. ‘Mrs Lacey! I was just coming to find you…’

Lily ran gracefully – or as gracefully as she could – back onto the stage with the hoop, which had been painted silver now to make it look more mystical, and handed it to Daniel. Daniel twirled it in his hands, and stepped towards the edge of the stage, swirling it through the air to demonstrate to the audience how solid it was. Then he walked back to Georgie, apparently floating in a deep trance above the stage, and started the clever sleight of hand that made the hoop appear to pass around her body. Lily smiled a little. Now she knew how he did it, it was easy to see – but the audience were sighing with amazement. They were convinced Daniel had levitated the Northern Princess, and excited whispers were running around the theatre. This was even better than the other girl disappearing in the cabinet.

His face still deathly serious – though Lily could tell he was longing to grin – Daniel began to beckon Georgie down, while Lily kneeled at the foot of the platform, trying to look enthralled. She was close enough to the mechanism to hear a sudden squeak, and a crack. Daniel heard it too – she could see his hands jolt as he tried to work out what was going on, and he glanced behind him with his eyebrows practically in his hair. Georgie’s foot twitched anxiously, and she slid forwards a little. She was sliding off the board, Lily realised in horror, although to the audience it only looked as if Daniel’s spell was slipping. He redoubled his mystical gestures, and hissed to Sam behind the curtain. ‘Hurry! Get her down!’

‘The joist’s cracking! Someone’s sawn it half-through!’ Sam hissed back. ‘I bring her down any faster and it’ll split!’

Georgie was keeping almost perfectly still, her hands crossed over her chest, but Lily could see her eyelids fluttering, and knew that she was panicking. Should she fall, and ruin the act she’d worked so hard for, or use just a little of her magic to save herself? Georgie adored the act, playing up to her Northern Princess image of frosty grace. It would be terrible to fall in front of a packed house. And it would expose the trick.

Lily swallowed. What if something dreadful happened? What if Georgie exploded the entire audience this time, not just a chair? And how much magic was it safe to use before Marten scented them again?

A faint silvery shimmer was rippling the long gauzy skirts now, as Georgie started a spell to hold herself up – and Lily caught Henrietta’s horrified expression, and knew they couldn’t risk it.

She stood up, forcing herself to do it slowly, and ran to Daniel’s side, mimicking his gestures as if she was desperately adding extra power to his spell – as though this was such difficult magic that he needed her help.

‘Georgie, let me!’ she breathed, and for a second the silvery shimmer faded, and then grew stronger, as Lily sealed the splintering wood of the joist with a binding spell that probably meant no one would ever be able to cut through it again. Every fibre of the wood remembered the tree it had grown in, and bound itself together like hardened oak.

The audience sighed blissfully as a cloud of silver dust joined the chemical smoke that Ned had been pumping out from behind the curtain, and Georgie came back down to the platform, and allowed herself to be woken from her trance with only the slightest hint of a glare at Daniel.

Then they ran to the edge of the stage, and bowed, and bowed again, as the audience thundered their applause. But Lily was too angry to appreciate the storm of clapping and the cheers. She simply wanted to get off the stage, so she could go and wring a little songbird’s neck.

L
ydia was standing in the wings, her face grey under the greasepaint. Lily had been planning to – to – she wasn’t quite sure what, but she could guarantee Lydia wouldn’t have liked it.

But the other girl’s shocked face stopped her, and she lunged for Henrietta’s collar, as the little pug was growling furiously. Of course. Lydia had never really believed their act was magical. But now she’d seen Lily rescue Georgie, and she knew that Lily had used magic – because she had been the one who sabotaged the lift. Georgie grabbed Lily’s arm, and pulled her back. ‘What are we going to say?’ she hissed.