by Webb, Holly
‘Here.’ Henrietta had stopped in front of a door. ‘Knock on it,’ she whispered.
‘But she isn’t here!’ Lily frowned.
‘Just make sure.’ Henrietta rolled her marblelike eyes. ‘And if you knock, you can say you were looking for your aunt if anyone catches us. The servants here are very well-trained. Very quiet. Someone could be watching.’ She glanced around, and shut her mouth uneasily, with a little snap of teeth.
Lily had her hand on the gilded door handle, when there was a tapping of feet across the marble floor of the hallway, and a murmur of voices at the front door.
‘Aunt Clara’s back!’ Lily jumped away from the door as if it had bitten her, and raced back along the passageway to the balcony.
She could hear her aunt’s voice in the hall now, asking the footman to send her maid to her room. Lily looked around her worriedly – her plan had been for no one to see her, however much she protested that they were allowed to explore. She put out her hand to a long velvet curtain draped around the window, thinking that perhaps she could duck behind it, when another hand closed over hers. Lily screamed – quietly – and tried to wrench her hand away.
‘What are you doing sneaking around?’ her cousin snapped, stepping out from behind the curtain.
‘I wasn’t! And what are you doing hiding behind curtains?’ Lily gasped back. Her heart was still thudding so hard it felt as if parts might snap. She had looked down at the fingers round hers expecting them to be scaly, or at least clawlike, not just ink-stained and bitten-nailed.
‘This is my house. I can sit where I like.’ Louis was a year younger than Lily, but he was taller, and he looked down at her as if she were some sort of worm. ‘You were sneaking. I saw you hovering outside my mother’s room.’
Lily glanced down at Henrietta worriedly. They had been whispering, but he still might have been close enough to hear them. But he couldn’t have done. He would have said something. Surely.
There was a whispering of silk skirts on the balcony, and Louis hurriedly let go of Lily.
Aunt Clara didn’t so much as raise her eyebrows seeing the pair of them together. Only the slightest catch in her gliding step betrayed her surprise.
‘Good afternoon, Aunt,’ Lily stammered, wanting to say something before Louis accused her of spying. ‘I was coming to find you. Georgie and I wanted to know if you had succeeded in finding us a governess.’
Aunt Clara looked down at her thoughtfully. ‘I’m afraid not yet.’ She walked around Lily, admiring her from all angles. ‘You look very well indeed,’ she murmured. ‘And the dog too. Very pretty.’
Lily blushed. She wasn’t used to compliments. She wondered if it was another part of her aunt’s strange twisted magic, that suddenly her opinion seemed so important. Aunt Clara was still staring at her, and Lily fidgeted uneasily.
‘I suppose it was naïve of me to expect you to stay quietly in your room,’ her aunt said at last. ‘It doesn’t surprise me that it’s you I find – shall we say exploring? To be polite about it? Unless your sister is wandering around some other part of the house?’
Lily shook her head. ‘She’s doing embroidery,’ she muttered.
Aunt Clara nodded, as though she had thought as much. ‘Quite.’
‘She was spying!’ Louis burst out.
‘Well, of course she was!’ Aunt Clara smiled lovingly at him. ‘And so would you have been, dearest. Your cousin is a curious child, just like you.’ She gave Lily a look of distaste. ‘Not quite like you.’
‘I haven’t been…’ Lily began, but Aunt Clara glared at her, clearly telling her to be silent.
Lily bit her bottom lip. Was it possible that Louis didn’t know about his mother’s magical background? Hadn’t anything strange ever happened to him, something that made him wonder about his family? Lily looked at him thoughtfully. His mouse-brown hair was ruffled, and his clothes looked more dishevelled than when she’d seen him last. But he didn’t look as though his breakfast had gone floating around the room, or his bed had sprouted paws recently. Lily’s own magic had only started to work properly a few weeks before, and she was older than Louis. Perhaps nothing had happened to him yet. Perhaps he took after his father, and nothing ever would. Still, she thought Aunt Clara was taking a great risk, not warning him. What if he had inherited magic, and it suddenly exploded out of him one day?
‘Come and sit with me, Lily,’ Aunt Clara said sweetly. ‘I want to talk to you.’ She swished gracefully along the passage to her sitting room. Lily followed her, and Louis stared after them resentfully.
Aunt Clara’s sitting room was as perfect as she was. There were a great many flowers, and the air was so heavy with their scent that Lily noticed every breath she took. She could even taste them, a honey sweetness on the back of her tongue. When Aunt Clara closed the door, the perfume wrapped Lily round, dizzying her, and she slumped into a delicate little chair, shaking her head. Henrietta was staggering, her delicate nose hit even harder than Lily’s.
‘Your manners are quite graceless,’ her aunt told her disapprovingly. ‘And you are shockingly indiscreet! You will not mention our family failings in this house, do you understand? Louis does not know about my family, and he must not. This is why I brought you here! I can’t risk the secret getting out!’ Her perfectly manicured nails were digging into her palms, and her eyes shone brilliantly.
‘But shouldn’t you tell him? Won’t he be scared – if something happens?’ Lily whispered, pulling Henrietta on to her lap. She put her hands across her face to protect herself from the flowers. ‘And can’t anyone see what you’re doing? I don’t understand. These flowers can’t be real. It’s a spell, it must be.’ She peered at Aunt Clara over her fingers, trying to catch some hint of the woman behind the mask of glamour.
‘Stupid child!’ Aunt Clara snapped. ‘The flowers are simply expensive! I doubt you’ve ever seen anything like them, shut away in that rotting old hulk of a house. I have given magic up, entirely, how many times do I need to explain it?’
Until you take the glamour off, Lily said to herself. But Aunt Clara really did seem to believe it herself.
‘Aunt Clara,’ she said suddenly. It wasn’t the best time to ask about where her father might be, Lily felt, but she wasn’t sure she’d have another opportunity. ‘Do you know where Father is being held? Where the magicians’ prison is?’
Aunt Clara quivered with horror. The crystal combs in her hair actually vibrated, Lily realised, and tiny sparks of something flickered around her aunt’s hair. ‘No, I do not! How would I know something like that? There is no magic in this house, child! No magicians!’ She swallowed, bringing herself back under control with effort. ‘Never ask me such things again. Now. If you can manage to behave like a young lady, I have a suggestion to make.’ Aunt Clara’s tone made it clear that it was actually more of an order.
Lily nodded faintly. She was getting used to the flowers now. Aunt Clara was right – she simply hadn’t seen anything like them before. Even the bouquets that had been thrown on to the stage at the theatre were nothing to these. The white, waxy petals of the plant nearest her were jewelled with tiny drops of sweetness, to entice passing bees, Lily guessed. As Aunt Clara paced the room, looking away from them, Henrietta climbed on to the arm of the chair, and licked it delicately. ‘Sugar!’ she whispered delightedly.
‘We are lucky enough to live next door to a very eminent man. One of the queen’s own counsellors. His name is Jonathan Dysart.’ She looked at Lily as though she expected her to recognise the name, but Lily shook her head. ‘He really is extremely influential.’ Aunt Clara sighed happily to herself. ‘And he has two daughters. Twins, called Cora and Penelope.’ She settled herself carefully on the chair opposite Lily’s, and eyed her closely. ‘Most unfortunately, they do not get on with Louis.’
Lily wasn’t surprised. She didn’t think anyone would. But then, it did give her a rather better opinion of her cousin. He was clearly able to stand up to Aunt Clara.
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sp; ‘It would be most convenient if you and Georgiana were to cultivate a friendship with Jonathan Dysart’s daughters.’ Aunt Clara was leaning forward now, and her hands were so closely grasped that her knuckles had whitened. What was so important about Jonathan Dysart? Lily wondered.
‘What does he do?’ she murmured.
Aunt Clara sighed. ‘He is so very close to the queen. And to the Dowager – her mother, that is. I’ve always wanted… That is… To be associated with someone in those circles… There would be no suspicion of a taint any longer, I’m quite sure.’
‘She’s deranged,’ Henrietta breathed in Lily’s ear. ‘Obsessed.’
Lily nodded. She was feeling rather more frightened of Aunt Clara now. Their aunt was so wound up with denying her own old magic. Clearly, she meant to make Lily and Georgie do the same. She was going to turn them into perfect, ordinary little society misses. Whatever it took.
‘Don’t let her get you alone,’ Henrietta muttered. ‘Especially not round anything sharp.’
Lily glared at her. A talking dog was bound to make Aunt Clara even more upset.
‘I think it would be quite appropriate to invite Cora and Penelope to take tea with you and your sister,’ Aunt Clara purred. ‘Don’t you?’
Lily nodded. She really didn’t have a choice.
Aunt Clara lost no time in sending a sweetly worded message to the children next door, and the visit was arranged for two days later. Lily was quite looking forward to it. The new governess had still not arrived, and she was fed up with all the etiquette books, and even more so with Georgie’s calm embroidering.
‘We have to make them like us,’ Lily explained to her. ‘Aunt Clara’s certain that their father can make her friends with the queen – or something like that. And if their father’s some sort of royal counsellor, maybe they might know things? Or they could find them out for us, perhaps. If we – made them…’ She swallowed. The idea of putting a spell on someone to make them do what she wanted was exciting and horrible at the same time. ‘No. We mustn’t. It’s too dangerous, and Aunt Clara would have a fit if she found out.’
She didn’t mention their aunt’s worrying obsession with ridding their family of the taint. Perhaps when Aunt Clara had got her claws into Jonathan Dysart she wouldn’t worry about it quite so much. At the moment, Lily had a feeling that their plans to rescue Father might push Aunt Clara even further into her strange, obsessive thoughts. And if they admitted that Georgie’s magic had been turned into a weapon to assassinate the queen, Lily was convinced that her aunt would denounce them immediately. Lily sighed. She had to admit, that wasn’t entirely unreasonable.
‘I know, Lily,’ Georgie said, in a long-suffering voice. ‘You’ve explained it to me at least four times. Be nice to these girls. I will!’
‘You didn’t see what Aunt Clara was like,’ Lily muttered. ‘She’s as frightening as Mama, Georgie; she just does it in a more honey-ish way.’
Georgie laid her embroidery over the sofa arm and pulled Lily down to sit beside her. ‘Don’t worry so much. All we have to do is charm two girls. It can’t be that difficult. Do you think Aunt Clara would notice if you used just a very tiny spell?’
Lily shook her head. ‘We’d better not risk it, though I wish we could. Besides, I’m not sure the house would let me do any spells. Aunt Clara hates magic so much, and that’s seeped into everything. Even the furniture.’ She shuddered. ‘I feel like my skin’s glowing all the time, there’s so much magic tied up inside me.’ She shrugged off Georgie’s embrace, and stood up, pacing again. ‘We should change. Aunt Clara was very clear. We need to make a good impression.’
Georgie shook her head, smiling, and Henrietta eyed Lily, with her nose even more deeply wrinkled than usual. ‘You really want this to work,’ she said thoughtfully.
Lily sighed. ‘I want to get out of here, that’s all. I’m still not convinced Aunt Clara doesn’t know. And even if she doesn’t, if we do as she says, we’ve more chance of being allowed out, haven’t we? Into society. To talk to people.’ She hurried over to the heavy, dark wood wardrobe in the corner of the room. She didn’t much like the sort of silk dresses that Aunt Clara had provided for them both – too frilly – but she had to admit they were beautifully made, and Georgie had positively purred at the delicacy of the stitching. She’d spent ages cooing over the cobwebby lace on the upstanding collars of the ones that were clearly meant to be best dresses. They were far nicer than anything the girls had had at Merrythought. Lily had always had Georgie’s hand-me-downs anyway, although her sister hadn’t been hard on clothes, as she’d spent all her time studying her magic lessons with Mama.
As Lily hauled the dresses out, Georgie jumped up crossly. ‘Lily! Not like that. Be careful. You’ll catch the trimming.’
‘It wouldn’t be hard,’ Lily muttered. These dresses were in a style more like Aunt Clara’s own, though only knee-length, instead of sweeping the floor like their aunt’s. The tight bodices flared into five layers of flounces, and they had pads at the back to make the skirts stick up, and then more skirt drawn back and tied in enormous bows over the bustle pads.
‘I feel twice the size of me!’ Lily hissed irritably, as Georgie did up the line of tiny buttons down the back of the bodice. ‘And how am I ever supposed to get out of it again?’
‘I like it,’ Henrietta told her approvingly. ‘Very proper. Very ladylike. Arabel had pretty dresses, though she spoilt them regularly. She had a very good mending spell in the end.’
‘I can’t even move my arms with these stupid sleeves,’ Lily growled, flapping a little, to squish the big puffy bits at her shoulders.
‘Don’t do that!’ It was Georgie and Henrietta together, and they exchanged a disgusted glance. It was probably the most in sympathy they’d ever been, Lily realised, smiling a little in spite of the ridiculous dress. She knew it was fashionable, beautiful even, but it just didn’t feel like her. The colour particularly – she didn’t feel right in the pale ice blue.
Clumsily, she buttoned Georgie into her pink version of the dress, and they glanced at the door. ‘The drawing room, then?’ Lily said, and Georgie followed her, padding out into the passageway in their pretty soft leather boots.
The drawing room was gold and white, and full of mirrors. It made the room beautifully light, but somehow cold. Lily shivered as they sat on a white brocade sofa, waiting for the other girls to arrive. The strange atmosphere of the house was no easier to live with now that they were allowed out of their room. She felt as though the many mirrors were reflecting her back and forth between them, thinning her out every time, so that she was a washed and shrunken child, who could be made to do whatever she was told.
The door rattled, and she jumped in panic, startling Georgie into a nervous laugh. Henrietta growled, and twitched.
Aunt Clara swept in silkily, smiling in approval at their pretty dresses, and the ribbons Georgie had tied in their hair. ‘Good. Very good. I shall tell Fraser to serve tea at four.’
Lily nodded. The delicate golden sunburst clock on the mantelpiece said it was only half past three now. What were they supposed to do with these girls until tea arrived? It was all very well for Aunt Clara to say entertain them, but how? Neither Lily nor Georgie had ever paid or received a formal call, and the only girls they knew were each other – and Lydia, the jealous child star who had tried to sabotage Daniel’s illusionist act, and denounce them to the Queen’s Men.
‘Aunt Clara…’ Lily began, but the door swung open again, and Fraser announced, ‘Miss Penelope Dysart, Miss Cora Dysart.’ Aunt Clara hurried across the room in a flurry of silken flounces to kiss the visitors, and lead them fussily to Lily and Georgie.
‘Do we curtsey?’ Lily hissed, half to Georgie and half to Henrietta, who was just as likely to know.
‘I’m not sure…’
‘Shake hands!’ Henrietta snarled back, rolling her eyes.
The four girls greeted each other uncomfortably, and Lily noted with horror that althou
gh Fraser had introduced the Dysart girls, she had no idea which was which – Cora and Penelope appeared to be identical twins. They were even dressed identically, in ruffled pale green dresses that matched their pale green eyes. They had the darkest hair Lily had even seen, and they wore it loose, cascading in curls down their backs.
‘Good afternoon,’ they said sweetly, together, and Lily shivered a little. Was it only the odd echoing effect of the girls speaking at once, or was there something strange in those voices?
Henrietta glanced up at her meaningfully, and Lily swallowed. The Dysarts were meant to be Aunt Clara’s way of wiping out the nasty streak of magic that was spoiling her family’s prospects. But they were as magical as she was trying not to be.
Lily tried to smile politely, but Penelope and Cora were watching her, their green eyes hard and mirror-like. They knew quite well that they had been recognised.
Aunt Clara was talking, a gentle stream of conversation on how lovely it was to have her dear nieces to stay, how much she had enjoyed girlish company, and ordering their dresses. But Lily knew that all of the girls wanted nothing more than for her to leave – so they could talk properly.
Georgie didn’t play a part in it, but Lily felt her magic coiling excitedly inside her, spreading out to meet the spell that was hazing the air of the drawing room, sparkling in all the mirrors. The house couldn’t fight off the power of three young magicians, she realised. And Aunt Clara was so happy the Dysart girls were here – she’d let her guard down.
The spell felt intriguingly different to one of her own, perhaps because of its dual nature – the twins had cast it together, she thought. It seized her magic hungrily, and she snatched it back, paying it out with care, like the crabbing lines she’d used with Peter, off the boathouse jetty. All three girls swirled their magic around Aunt Clara, telling her very firmly to leave. Lily shivered happily, and her magic purred inside her, glad to be set free. It was exciting, to be part of someone else’s spell. But she wasn’t stupid, and the Dysart girls’ spell had dug in little hooked claws. She could feel them, pulling and testing and trying and stealing.