by Webb, Holly
‘Can she get away?’ Rose demanded.
Eliza shook her head. ‘No. He still has her bound, but I think her real magic was waking up inside her again. I don’t know how much longer his spell will hold.’
Rose laughed. ‘But then we did it! We’ve freed her. If Pike’s spell is wearing off, she’ll be able to get away!’
Eliza was silent for a moment, staring down at the strange floor of the boat, her wet hair trailing over her face.
‘What is it?’ Rose asked uncertainly. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Pike knows too. He can tell he’s losing her.’ Eliza looked up, shaking her hair back. ‘He’ll kill her first. He could do that, now, while he still has her just enough under his control. He can’t let her escape. She’d have the law after him, and if they knew what they were fighting, if she told them how to fight him, he knows he wouldn’t have a chance. He doesn’t want to be hanged, Rose.’
Rose laughed bitterly. ‘So she’s going to die happy, that’s what you meant by us not making things worse? We have to go back and get her.’ She smacked the roof of the cabin angrily. ‘How do we make this thing move? We need to turn around.’
‘It’s partly made of your magic, I should think you just tell it.’ Freddie reached out to touch the side of the boat, his fingers stroking the hardly-there wood. ‘It feels like you, Rose. You and the memories in the wood, that’s all.’
‘Look!’ Bill nudged them both. ‘That cat, running along the slipway there. Is that Himself?’
Freddie peered across the water. ‘I think so. Gus! Gus, we’re here!’
‘I can see you, you idiot,’ came a mewing cry across the water. ‘Why else would I be down by the river on a freezing February morning?’
‘Is the master with you?’ Freddie called back, ignoring the insults, which was second nature by now.
Gus shook his head. ‘Stuck at the palace.’ His whiskers were bristling with tiny, silvery sparks, Rose noticed, frowning. The white cat often glittered when he was working a spell, but this looked different. Gus was worried, and trying not to show it. She had a dreadful feeling that she knew why. Her mouth was suddenly full of a strange, bitter taste of dismay.
‘The Talish invasion is about to begin, according to some intelligence the king had smuggled out. They’re preparing to embark, and Aloysius is desperately trying to gather everyone together to fight.’ Gus’s tail swished anxiously. ‘I decided I’d better save you myself, since we ought to get back and help. Although you seem to have saved yourselves without me, which is most ungracious.’
Their odd craft had turned, with a great creaking of phantom sails, and was now cutting through the water towards Gus’s slipway.
‘Did you tell it to do that?’ Bill asked, impressed.
‘Not really. It just did. I suppose I hadn’t told it anywhere I wanted it to go before, so it was just going. Now it knows we want to be over there.’
There was a certain smugness about the sails, as the boat drew up alongside the wooden slipway, where Gus was sitting, staring down at them disapprovingly.
‘Really. An imaginary boat? Could you not manage something better?’
‘It’s getting more real, I think,’ Rose noted, as they scrambled off onto the slipway. She held out her hand to Eliza, who was hesitating over the band of dark water between the boat and the wooden boards. ‘I won’t let you fall in it,’ she whispered. She knew that Eliza couldn’t drown again, and so did the ghost, but the water was as dark and thick and sucking as treacle. Eliza gripped Rose’s hand with her own chill fingers, and jumped, her eyes closed in fear. Then she scurried along the slipway towards the solid stone walls of another tumbledown warehouse.
‘Look, you can see proper wood, almost.’ Rose kneeled down and stroked the honey-yellow wood gently. ‘Where will you go now?’ she whispered, and felt the boat rock excitedly under her fingers. She smiled. ‘Good luck, wherever you are.’
‘Do you think a strange boat is just going to turn up in someone’s mooring?’ Bill asked, watching it shear off into the wind.
Rose smiled. ‘One that always seems to weather the storms better than anyone else’s. It’s a good boat. They’d better look after it.’ She stared fiercely across the water as the boat seemed to melt into the dancing February sun. Then she shook herself, and turned to Gus.
‘Listen, my mother is still in the warehouse. We escaped by accident, we didn’t really plan, and so…’
‘Oh good.’ Gus’s whiskers perked up a little. ‘I was beginning to think you had managed that without me, which would have been disappointing. So we have to go back and rescue her.’
Rose nodded. ‘How did you get away before? Did you find a different way out? We didn’t see.’
Gus snorted delicately. ‘Of course you didn’t. When Miranda began to raise the alarm I shot out into the passageway and back the way we’d come. It was fairly obvious you idiots weren’t going to get out in time – no point in all of us being caught.’
Freddie rolled his eyes. ‘Always heroic.’
Gus simply yawned, showing all his sparkling teeth. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? For the actually dangerous and difficult part. All you managed to do was get out. You need me to do anything useful.’
Rose put a hand in front of Freddie, who was starting to seethe. ‘Don’t, Freddie. We haven’t time to fight. Gus, Eliza thinks Pike is going to kill my mother so she can’t escape.’
Gus nodded brightly. ‘A challenge, then. What do we know about this Pike?’
‘Well, he’s mad.’ Freddie shrugged. ‘That’s about it.’
‘I don’t think he understands how to use the magic properly,’ Rose said slowly. ‘He seems to just – fling it about… Gus, could he have stolen it? Could he have a thing, a talisman, like the mask that Gossamer stole? And it’s that that gives him the magic? He seems very, very strong, but not quite right, somehow.’
Freddie frowned. ‘Oh. I thought that was just because he was mad.’
‘It’s how the boat happened, I think. When he was angry that I wouldn’t do as he said, the magic got loose, and because my magic was already in the boat timbers, it followed it there…’
Bill frowned. ‘If half his magic’s just sailed off down the river, does that mean he isn’t a magician any more? Did you steal his power, Rosie?’
Rose longed to say yes, but she looked doubtfully at Gus and Freddie and Bella, and shook her head. ‘It’ll grow again, won’t it? Do you think?’
Gus nodded. ‘But the boy is right. That could take time. We should hurry, while we might still have an advantage.’
Freddie folded his arms. ‘It’s all very well saying hurry. What are we hurrying to? We don’t have a plan – we can’t just walk in and ask for her back.’
Gus smiled a cat smile, his eyes narrowing in pleasure. ‘Actually, I thought that’s exactly what I might do. Walk, boy, and listen.’
They set off, hurrying down the slipway to solid ground, and following Gus through a series of dark, winding alleys.
‘Pike may be a magician, but the rest of the gang are not, hmmm?’ Gus explained as they scurried after him. ‘And he is weakened at the moment, or so we hope. So if we stay out of his way, we should be able to do this with a relatively simple series of spells.’
‘Don’t we need to go this way?’ Bill asked, pointing down a dark passage, the roofs of the warehouses almost touching overhead. ‘We want to get back to the water, don’t we? So we can find the hole the boat made.’
‘Too obvious,’ Freddie disagreed. ‘They’ll be expecting that, it’d be guarded.’
‘And the front won’t?’ Bill folded his arms disgustedly and stared down at Freddie.
‘Shut up!’ Gus hissed. ‘We don’t have time for this. Where’s that ghost-girl gone?’
Eliza, who had been lurking behind Rose, shuffled forwards a little. Rose frowned. Was Gus hoping to use her to get them inside? She wasn’t sure it would work. Eliza seemed so fragile, and it was obviously hard for her t
o control how she moved outside the mirror.
‘What sort of things was Pike involved in, when you lived there? Extortion? Gambling? Robbery?’ Gus demanded.
Eliza nodded. ‘All of that. But he got a lot of his money off the protection racket. He only had to look at a grate and the fire would start burning – it persuaded people pretty well.’
‘What does she mean?’ Bella whispered to Rose.
‘I think people paid him not to burn down their shops,’ Rose told her, shuddering.
Bella looked intrigued. ‘How clever.’
‘Bella!’
‘Well, it is. To have people paying you not to do things. It sounds ideal.’
Gus prowled on, the tip of his tail twitching thoughtfully. ‘So if a boy came to them, looking for a reward… Perhaps he was wanting to tell them about a new grocer’s opening, not too far away – just far enough to be into the respectable streets, they’d let him in – right through their front entrance. And really, once one of us is in, it should be no trouble at all to open a door to the rest, especially as Pike might be indisposed.’
Rose frowned. ‘I suppose we know where my mother is, now. She knows we might come back, too. She’d be ready, perhaps. She could help us to set her free.’
‘You’ve forgotten something,’ Freddie pointed out gloomily.
Gus pricked his ears up curiously.
‘This boy who’s got to get us in. They know what I look like, Gus. They aren’t going to let me anywhere. Unless we do a glamour, and that takes ages to get right. We aren’t all as good at it as Rose’s mother.’
Gus sighed. ‘I wasn’t talking about you, dear boy. I meant me.’
Eliza hissed loudly in Rose’s ear. ‘But he’s a cat!’
‘That’s what you think,’ Gus spat irritably, and he disappeared behind a rickety iron staircase. When he came back, he was a boy about the same age as Freddie, with similar whitish-blonde hair – but unlike Freddie’s, it looked grubby and uncombed, and he was wearing scruffy trousers, and a jacket with patches. Only his eyes were the same as before – one amber, one blue, and both sparkling evilly.
Rose stared at him. She had seen Gus as a boy once before, in Venice, but only behind a mask. This was the first time she had seen his human face. He had a very pointed chin, and his eyes were rather round and set far apart like a cat’s, but that was the sort of thing you only noticed if you knew.
‘Hello, Rose,’ he purred, and she jumped, realising how rude it was to stare so. Bill was scowling, which Gus seemed to think was very funny. He kept chuckling to himself. But at last they rounded a corner, and he held up one finger to shush everyone. ‘Look, there’s the warehouse. Stay here. I’ll call you once I’m past the guards, if the story works.’
‘What if it doesn’t?’ Rose murmured anxiously. Gus as a boy didn’t have the same air of unshakeable confidence as he did when he was a cat.
He sighed at her. ‘Well, then I won’t.’ And he sauntered off up the alleyway with his paws – hands – in his pockets.
They sat hidden behind a pile of old packing cases, watching the door of the warehouse anxiously.
‘He’s been a very long time,’ Freddie muttered. ‘We should have made him take Eliza, then at least he’d have more idea where he was going.’
Bella scowled. ‘This coat is ruined.’
Rose!
Rose sat up sharply. ‘Freddie, that wasn’t you, was it?’
‘No! Did he call you?’
‘I think so…’
Of course I did, idiot! Come on, there’s not a lot of time. I’ve sent the two men by the door to sleep, so you can sneak in, but I can feel Pike’s magic, and he’s getting stronger again.
‘I hope he’s right about this,’ Bill growled, as they peered round the shabby door to the warehouse. ‘I don’t like just walking in the front door.’
‘Stop complaining.’ Rose took hold of Bella’s hand, and dragged her into the shadowy building. The front part was simply a cavernous warehouse, piled with boxes and barrels. The two sleeping guards were collapsed on a pile of oriental carpets, which looked quite valuable.
Gus was beckoning to them from the other side of the space, by a small door. ‘It’s this way,’ he whispered, as soon as they reached him. ‘I got to her room, but I think it’ll need all of us to break Pike’s spell – you especially, Rose. And once we start to try, he’ll know what we’re doing, and he’ll come running.’
‘Leave me here, outside her door,’ Eliza whispered. ‘I’ll warn you if he’s coming.’
This time, Miranda wasn’t hopelessly facing the wall. She was still sitting on the bed, but she was staring intently at the door, as though she had been waiting for them to arrive. Her eyes were bright with hope and excitement, and as soon as she saw Rose, she tried to leap to her feet.
‘Ah! I can’t.’ She held her hands at her sides, squeezing her fingers into painful fists. ‘I’m holding back the alarm spell, but I can’t do it for long. He’ll be here. Please, help me break the binding.’
‘Do you know how he set it?’ Freddie asked, kneeling beside her.
She shook her head. ‘No. Except that he’s been adding to it for years – like layers and layers of silken ropes tying me down. There must be a way for someone to slice through them.’
Gus sat down on the bed beside her, and stretched out one finger. His nails were slightly hooked, like claws. He pulled at the air around Miranda, and made a spitting sound. ‘Tight,’ he muttered. ‘Nothing to get a grip on.’
Rose’s mother gave him an odd look, and Rose explained hastily. ‘He’s a cat.’
‘Oh! What a remarkable transformation.’
Gus grinned at her, showing off all his teeth, which were still very sharp.
Rose stroked her mother’s arm. ‘I can hardly feel the spell,’ she confessed. Her fingers were tingling, but it was with excitement, not magic.
Miranda smiled. ‘Keep doing that. I’m sure it’s weakening, even if you’re doing it by accident. And if it doesn’t work, at least I’ll remember you doing it. But promise me, if he comes, you’ll run, all of you. You have to leave me here.’
Rose frowned. She wasn’t sure she could promise. But Bella nodded. ‘We’ll make her go. We promise.’
‘You need to cut the spell away.’ Eliza had appeared beside her, and now she whispered in Rose’s ear.
‘I’ll go and take over watching,’ Bill muttered.
Rose turned to see the silver ghost hovering shyly next to her. ‘How? Do you know how we do it, Eliza?’
‘She is here, then!’ Rose’s mother exclaimed. ‘I thought I’d seen her.’
‘Yes, Miss Miranda. Sorry, miss,’ Eliza whispered.
‘She’s sorry – about taking the mirror,’ Rose explained.
Her mother shook her head. ‘After everything she did, she’s no need to say sorry. She saved you, Hope, she was the one who got you away from this awful place. How did you find her?’
‘She’s in your mirror,’ Rose explained, pulling it out of the inside of her coat. ‘Because she took it, she’s haunted it ever since.’
‘The mirror will break the spell,’ Eliza breathed in her ear, her breath frosty-cold. ‘If you break the mirror. Then use the largest shard of the mirror-glass to cut away the spell-bindings.’
Rose stared at her. ‘Really? And then she’ll be free?’
Eliza nodded. ‘Powerful spell, that mirror, miss.’
Rose drew in one delighted breath to tell the others, but then she frowned, turning back to the ghost-child. ‘Eliza, what happens to you if I break the mirror?’
Eliza smiled faintly. ‘Nothing.’
Rose stared at her. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Oh yes.’
Rose held the mirror by the handle, and stared around. There was nothing to break it with.
‘Stamp on it,’ Eliza hissed. ‘Put it on the floor and stamp on it.’
Rose nodded, and raised the heel of her boot to crush the glass. She was lo
oking at Eliza as she did it, and she saw the strangest expression cross her silver-mist face – a mixture of pain, and relief, and a sort of pleased surprise. And then she was gone.
Rose looked around, expecting her to reappear somewhere else in the room, but she didn’t. Her mother twisted painfully inside her spell-bindings, and Rose heard her whisper, ‘Oh, Liza…’ Her voice quivered and cracked.
‘She’s not coming back,’ Gus said, with a certain satisfaction.
Rose turned on him. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’
‘Knew what?’ Gus asked innocently.
‘That she’d go! I shouldn’t have believed her, she said nothing would happen.’
‘Rose, she was telling the truth,’ Gus told her, gripping her hand. She was sure she could feel fur between her fingers. ‘That’s what she meant. Nothing happened to her. That’s what she is now.’
‘I didn’t know she meant it like that,’ Rose whispered, stricken.
‘Don’t waste what she did for you,’ Gus reminded her. ‘It only worked because she gave herself up. She knew what she was doing, Rose. She’d sacrificed herself to save you once before, remember. And now we haven’t much time.’
Rose nodded, and wiped her hand across her eyes to brush the tears away. She looked down at the mirror glass, broken into lethal shards.
‘Hit it on the floor! Quickly!’ Bella muttered. ‘Look, I don’t think she can keep the alarm spell under control for much longer.’
Rose glanced up at her mother anxiously. She was biting into her lip, and her eyes were squeezed tight shut. Sharply, Rose hit the boarded floor with the mirror, and lifted the frame away, leaving the shattered glass on the floor. She picked up the largest, sharpest piece, and turned to her mother. ‘Where do I cut?’ she asked helplessly.
‘I doubt it matters,’ Gus told her. ‘Be quick!’
‘Oh, Eliza, please make this work,’ Rose begged, and she sliced quickly across her mother’s golden-bronze hair – it seemed the only safe place, although a great pity to cut off such pretty hair.