by Webb, Holly
Lily patted her cheek again, encouragingly. ‘It’s all right. We’ve woken up a dragon, that’s all.’
‘I’m such a terrible actress,’ Georgie whispered, as she sat on Lily’s bed, cupping her cocoa in both hands, and taking little pretend sips. ‘I almost dropped the mugs, my hands were shaking so much.’
‘It’s all right. Sarah’s so bespelled she wouldn’t notice if you’d gone blue in the face, as long as you took both our mugs. Tell me when no one’s looking, so I can pour them out of the window.’
‘We can’t stay here once it gets colder,’ Georgie murmured. ‘They’ll close the windows then.’
‘We’re not staying anyway,’ Lily growled. ‘A few more days, that’s all. Even if I have to promise him half a treasury.’
‘Does he like gold?’ Georgie whispered, fascinated.
‘Actually, I don’t know,’ Lily admitted. ‘We’ve only spoken to him a few times. He was quite keen on eating Henrietta, but I’m not really sure what he wants.’
Lily’s pillow quivered indignantly.
‘I expect she’d be a bit stringy,’ Georgie giggled, and Lily glared at her.
‘Don’t go getting hysterical.’
‘I can’t help it! A dragon!’ Georgie whispered back. ‘Honestly, Lily, I go and get myself bespelled for a few days, and you find a dragon. Typical.’
‘You’d better go back to your bed, and pretend to be asleep. We have to wait until no one notices us going.’ Lily quickly poured both cups of cocoa out of the window.
The other girls were already settling down for the night, but every time Lily thought it was safe to get up, someone else would turn over, or mutter something, and she would have to lie down again, kicking frustratedly at her blankets.
‘Lily…’ Georgie was sitting up in bed, staring at her. ‘Can’t we go yet? I’m sure everyone’s asleep.’
Lily blinked. The room was quiet, except for the patter of Henrietta’s claws, as she trotted up and down, sniffing at each bed. ‘She’s right. They’re all sleeping. Come on!’
Lily slipped out of bed, and followed Henrietta to the door. Georgie’s hand slipped into hers, and they made their way to the stairs, hurrying up to the third floor, and the room with the overmantel.
Georgie stroked the carving delicately, smoothing her fingers over the scales. ‘Is this what he looks like?’ she asked, and Lily nodded. ‘Even the colour. I don’t know if he was always this sort of silvery blue, or it’s just that we used the marble to call him.’
‘I am a little larger than that now,’ a voice said solemnly, and Georgie squeaked.
Even Lily drew in a sharp breath, and she had seen him before. But now the dragon was enormous, crammed into the room with his spiked spine pressed against the ceiling, and his tail wound in and out of the furniture.
‘You may have to start summoning me outside,’ the dragon suggested.
Lily nodded. ‘Are you real yet?’
‘Touch me.’
Lily reached out a hand, and brushed her fingers over his scales. ‘You feel real.’
‘I thought so too,’ he said, sounding pleased. ‘All of me is here now. Nothing left down in the cavern. The others are starting to wake too,’ he added, twitching his tail and watching it admiringly.
‘Others?’ Georgie whispered, staring at him. ‘There are more of you?’
‘Twelve altogether.’ He nodded. ‘But I don’t know if all of them will wake up,’ he added, swinging his head from side to side rather unhappily. ‘We have been asleep a very long time.’
‘Can you appear and disappear still, now you’re real?’ Lily asked worriedly. She wasn’t sure he was ever going to be able to get out of the room, if he couldn’t.
‘Only in Fell Hall, since I’ve been here so long. I’m part of the house, so I can disappear through the carvings. If I leave, I shall be solid.’ He stretched out his claws. ‘But I wouldn’t mind that. I’ve been half a dream for such a very long time.’
Georgie swallowed. ‘He’d fit in the theatre, Lily. There’s masses of space.’
‘The theatre?’ The dragon’s eyes glittered as he brought his massive head down closer to the girls. ‘Where they have plays? There was a troupe of actors at the Hall once.’
‘This one has dancing, and songs, mostly,’ Lily admitted. ‘But recitations sometimes. And very good juggling. Georgie and I were part of an act once.’ It seemed a very long time ago. She wondered for a moment if Daniel had found another assistant.
‘So if I were to take you away from here, I might be able to stay in this theatre?’ the dragon suggested.
Lily nodded slowly. She had been planning to beg him to help them escape. It was rather strange to have him suggest it instead.
He gave a little snort of amusement, and wisps of smoke curled from his huge black nostrils. ‘Hmf. A long time since that has happened. Dear little cousin, you do not have to tell me that you need me to help you escape. I can feel you needing it. Your thoughts are buzzing with it.’ He lowered his massive head, and stared at Georgie, his saucer-sized eyes gazing into hers.
Georgie stepped towards him, hypnotised by the great, glittering eyes, and Lily swallowed. He had wanted to eat Henrietta. What did he eat? Now he seemed so much larger, and so much more solid, it was easier to imagine…
But then Georgie reeled away, her hands flying to her ears, and staggered across the room to collapse gracefully on a chair.
It’s the theatre training, Lily found herself thinking. She even faints nicely.
‘Better,’ the dragon said approvingly. ‘Yes, I thought so. Your sister wants to escape too, now those tangled enchantments round her have gone.’
Lily looked hopefully at Georgie, who nodded, making the strangest face, as though she was trying to look down her own nose. ‘I think so. I don’t feel like I’m under a spell. But then, I didn’t before either,’ she admitted sadly.
‘There’s still something else,’ the dragon muttered, laying his head along the back of Georgie’s chair. ‘Something deeper, that I can’t quite pull away…’
‘Mama’s spells,’ Lily sighed. She had hoped for a minute that he might have broken those too. But they were too old, and too deep. ‘Could you do that to all the children?’ she asked him hopefully. ‘We’ll take you to London. You’d like the theatre, I know you would.’
‘It would be busy?’ the dragon asked, almost shyly. ‘I long for busy, after three hundred years of quiet.’
‘Very busy.’ Lily laughed, remembering the panic before each night’s show.
‘Then I will take you there.’ The dragon nodded. ‘You, and all the others, if they can be persuaded to ride on me.’
‘How long is it since you’ve flown?’ Georgie asked him, in a small voice.
The dragon drew up his head proudly – although the gesture was rather spoiled by having to mind the ceiling. ‘One does not forget.’
‘Oh.’ Georgie nodded. ‘Good.’
‘We should go now,’ Lily said suddenly. ‘Now, before they break any more of us.’
The dragon swung his head to look at her, and the glitter in his dark eyes intensified. He was excited. He wanted to fly, she thought.
‘If you want to take the others with you,’ Henrietta pointed out, ‘we need to get rid of the effects of that cocoa. They’re more likely to run screaming from a dragon than want to escape on one, at the moment. Even without those spells, he is still quite frightening.’
The dragon yawned, deliberately showing Henrietta the size of his teeth. Lily thought that he probably objected to being only quite frightening.
It was true, though. She could imagine Lottie being brave enough to climb on to a dragon’s back – but the others? Elizabeth and Sarah would run screaming for Miss Merganser. She clenched her fists frustratedly. ‘Could you do what you’ve done for Georgie to all the others? Clear away the spells they’ve been drugged with?’ She frowned. ‘It might be harder than it was with Georgie,’ she admitted slowly. ‘They’
ve all been here longer.’
‘I can remove the worst effects,’ the dragon agreed. ‘There is one room where you all sleep, is there not?’
‘All the girls.’ Lily nodded. ‘The boys are on the other side of the passage.’
The dragon chuckled. ‘There is enough of me now. The boys can have the tail end.’
‘What will you have to do?’ Georgie asked, curiously.
The dragon shrugged a little. ‘Nothing. Touch them all perhaps. Be near them. It is very hard to keep someone under a spell with a dragon around. We like magic too much.’
‘And it won’t hurt you, taking away all those spells?’ Lily asked, a little anxiously.
‘Hardly.’ He gave another dismissive snort, and again, the smoke coiled from his nostrils. Lily, Georgie and Henrietta eyed it, fascinated, but too polite – or too scared – to say anything.
‘Oh!’ Lily reached out a hand to him. ‘The old lady along the passage! We should take her with us too.’
‘What?’ Georgie asked. ‘Lily, have you been all over this house?’
‘I was trying to find Peter. And then I heard the dragon whispering to me. I had to explore.’
‘While you were drinking your cocoa and doing as you were told,’ Henrietta snapped.
‘I thought you were trying not to be so mean,’ Lily reminded her. ‘You’d like her, Georgie. She does the most amazing embroidery. Actually, if we’re all going back to the theatre, maybe she can help you and Maria in the wardrobe.’
Georgie brightened at the thought, but then she looked troubled. ‘Lily, what are we going to do with all those children? They can’t all live at the theatre. And the girls told us that their families would get into trouble if they ran away.’
‘But they can’t do that for all their families, can they?’ Lily asked doubtfully.
Georgie shrugged. ‘I think the Queen’s Men can do anything they like.’
‘We can’t leave them here,’ Lily muttered. ‘We just can’t.’
‘I know.’ Georgie shivered. ‘I think we’re going to find it hard to hide, Lily. The Queen’s Men probably know we were at the theatre – Aunt Clara would have told them, surely? Don’t worry,’ she told the dragon. ‘I’m sure you can still hide there.’ She smiled. ‘They might use you as scenery. Are you good at keeping still?’
‘You are being hunted?’ he asked curiously.
‘We will be, when they find out we’ve run away from here,’ Lily sighed.
The dragon’s tail twitched enthusiastically. ‘This becomes more and more interesting. We must certainly rescue the old lady, as well. We cannot leave one of her blood here.’ He shimmered in the darkness of the room, and melted into a misty outline of a dragon, and then simply a dragon-shaped space, before the light adjusted itself again, and the three of them were alone in the dark.
You will have to come and talk to her, a voice rumbled around Lily’s ears. She is still not quite sure about me. Lily shook herself.
‘What did he mean, one of her blood?’ Henrietta growled, as they hurried along the passage.
‘I haven’t any idea,’ Lily admitted. It had sounded sinister, someone with such large teeth discussing blood.
The door to the old lady’s room was open, and she was standing in the middle of it, looking rather shaken, and dressed only in a delicate, lace-edged nightgown, and a cap. There was no doubt that she could see the dragon now. But she wasn’t screaming. She was quite calm, though very pale. Lily was sure her eyes were brighter, in the shining light of the dragon. It was as though a film of sleep had been lifted from them.
‘She is far too special to be left behind,’ the dragon told Lily, his voice deep and caressing.
Lily frowned at him. ‘Why? What did you mean about her blood?’
The dragon blinked at her, the lids closing slowly over his great eyes. ‘Dragons have always had an affinity for royal blood,’ he explained, as though to a simpleton. ‘Her presence has helped to waken me too, I am sure.’
‘Royal blood?’ Georgie stared at the old lady, and Henrietta went to sniff her ankles suspiciously.
‘Fifty years gone, since I met any princesses,’ she muttered, still sniffing. ‘One of the present queen’s sisters, perhaps.’
‘Her younger sister.’ The old lady inclined her head politely. ‘Princess Jane. Tell me. The dragon.’ She didn’t look at him, merely waved a hand behind her at his silvery bulk, and swallowed. ‘He is here? I’m not hallucinating?’
‘No, indeed, Your Highness.’ Georgie curtseyed, and glared at Lily until she did the same.
Lily bobbed her knees ungracefully, staring all the while. ‘But if you’re a princess, what are you doing here? Oh! That’s why it mattered that you wouldn’t say publicly that you renounced all magic. You mean your own sister shut you up in here? Queen Sophia?’
‘It was my mother more, I think, Queen Adelaide, the Dowager Queen,’ Princess Jane explained. She seemed to have relaxed, strangely, now she knew there really was a dragon in her bedroom. ‘She was so angry, after poor Papa was murdered by that magician. One could understand why. But I never saw why one madman meant we had to destroy all magic. It was so beautiful. I knew several magicians. I had a magician girl as my maid for a while, to protect me from another plot. She was a Fell too, it turned out in the end.’
‘What happened to her, after the Decree?’ Lily whispered.
‘Rose? She went to the Americas. Many of our magicians did. Magic isn’t outlawed there. She wrote to me for a while – perhaps she still does.’ The old princess sighed.
‘We saw your sister, in London,’ Lily told her, and the old lady’s face brightened. She caught Lily’s hand, and pulled her to the little sofa. The dragon curled himself around them, listening avidly. He went all round the sofa easily now, with his tail coiling round all over again.
‘Tell me, is she well?’
Lily frowned, and glanced at Georgie. ‘She didn’t look very happy,’ she admitted. ‘We only saw her from a distance, in a carriage. But she looked – burdened.’
Princess Jane nodded. ‘Poor Sophia,’ she murmured. ‘She has such a strong sense of duty. And she is so much under Mama’s control.’
‘I think your mama is madder than you are,’ Henrietta jinked her way between the dragon’s claws, and jumped up beside the old princess.
Princess Jane grimaced. ‘Well. Let us say that she is very determined.’ It sounded as though she were agreeing.
‘Does your sister know where you are?’ Lily asked hesitantly.
‘I think not.’ The princess sighed. ‘She is very tender-hearted. Mama would not have told her that I was shut away somewhere like this.’
‘So it’s really your mother who hates magic so much?’
‘She never liked it,’ Princess Jane admitted. ‘After Papa was killed, she was distraught. Maddened, even, as you say. Sophia could never have stood up to her, and she was grieving too. By then Lucasta and Charlotte, my other sisters, were both married, and living abroad. It was only Sophia and Mama and me at the palace – and Mama’s legions of advisers, every one of them encouraging her to believe that all magic was evil.’
‘Why didn’t you just go along with them?’ Georgie asked. She was envious of the princess’s strength of mind, Lily realised sadly. ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier? You could have gone and lived somewhere away from the palace, and not had to be part of it.’
Princess Jane shook her head. ‘Rose saved my life. How could I let them say she was a criminal? Rose, and Bella, and Frederick, and Bella’s father. They were people. Not some dreadful stain on our country’s history. You must never let them call you that.’ She sounded stern, and royal, for the first time.
‘We won’t,’ Georgie murmured, but she sounded rather ashamed.
‘Would you help us?’ Lily asked slowly. She had never thought of trying to change the way her world worked – magic had been forbidden since before she’d been born. She could hardly imagine a world where it was free again
. It made her feel dizzy to think of it.
‘We could fight them.’ She paused. ‘But we have to find our father first. We need him, you see, to help Georgie.’
Georgie was shaking her head frantically, and Lily realised that it probably wasn’t tactful to tell the princess that Georgie was full of wrong magic, set to destroy Queen Sophia in the very same way that her father had been assassinated.
She compromised on half the truth. ‘Our mama twisted Georgie’s magic. She’s under a sort of spell, now.’ Lily smiled sadly at the princess. ‘Your mama reminded me of ours, when I saw her. Ours is very – determined, too. She hates the way things are now. She’s been fighting against the Queen’s Men all along,’ Lily admitted, watching the princess anxiously.
But Princess Jane only smiled. ‘It would be foolish to think that there wasn’t a resistance. It’s why they have been so harsh, all this time. But the children – that was a step too far, taking the children.’
I’m ending up on the same side as Mama, Lily realised suddenly. Except she wanted to talk to the queen, not murder her. But after what they had seen at Fell Hall, she and Georgie couldn’t simply go back to hiding, and letting the Queen’s Men break the magic out of children. They had to bring magic back.
‘Once we’ve found our father – and we think we know where he is – and he’s helped us restore Georgie’s magic…’ She paused. ‘We could protest…’ she said eventually. ‘It’s what Father was trying to do, before he was arrested. He got put in prison for it. For refusing to deny his magic.’
Princess Jane smiled. ‘Much like me.’
‘If you were with us too… Do you think we could ever bring it back?’ Lily whispered, the magic suddenly rushing and thumping in her veins.
The princess patted her cheek with papery old fingers, and sighed. ‘We could try. I haven’t seen the world for forty years, but even before I was shut up here, it was as though the colour was all seeping away, without the magic. We could try…’ She smiled wistfully, and then her eyes sharpened again. ‘Is your father in Archgate?’