by Webb, Holly
‘Are you all right? It was some sort of control spell,’ her father muttered, turning away from his half-started warding, and looking at the charred fabric with horror. ‘To make you do whatever Nerissa wanted.’ He nudged the ashes with his foot. ‘This was Georgie’s own blood she used, I think.’
‘The colour out of her cheeks,’ Lily agreed miserably. ‘She was looking better than she had in ages, since we’d started loosening the spells. This magic’s going to kill her. Georgie! Georgie! Can’t you stop?’
Georgie’s eyes seemed to snap into focus for just a second, and they were pleading with Lily. Help me! It was her sister’s voice in her head, frightened and desperate.
She’ll make me hurt you, I can’t stop her!
Lily nodded. She caught her sister’s hands, flinching a little at their cold deadness. It was as though the spells didn’t really need Georgie’s body at all, it was just a shell for the essence of her sister, deep inside. They drew all the life and warmth of her far down into themselves. That was what Lily had to protect, from the spells, and their mother. But if Georgie slept, unconscious, then surely the spells would be trapped inside her. It had happened before, when the spells first began to take her over – she would force herself to faint, so that she couldn’t be made to hurt anyone. It was what she had done by the fountain.
‘Lie down,’ Lily told her, thinking it as hard as she could as well as saying it. Her sister’s eyes rolled back, showing eerie whites, and then Georgie collapsed. Lily half caught her as she crumpled to the floor in her eagerness to be gone, and then Peter was there, helping her lower Georgie down. Lily rubbed her fingertips together over Georgie’s eyelids, imagining sleep dust dropping into her sister’s eyes and sparkling over the purplish lids, sealing her away from the magic. Georgie wriggled, and then seemed to smile for a moment, and then the life in her died away, leaving her just a huddled little mass of clothes.
‘Nerissa.’
Lily wasn’t used to all the nuances of her father’s voice yet, but the darkness of his tone still shocked her. She turned slowly round, and saw her mother standing in the aisle that ran down the middle of the theatre. She was wearing the rust-red dress that she’d had on in Lily’s dream, and she was smiling again too.
‘I’ve been looking for you, Lily,’ she said, her voice far sweeter than Lily ever remembered it being. ‘For a very long time.’
‘You mean Georgie,’ Lily stuttered, her voice breaking and squeaking from fear. Had their mother even forgotten which of them was which?
‘Mmmm...’ Her murmur was like honey, dripping into Lily’s ears and mouth. Mama had never bothered to use charm on her before. She had never noticed her before. ‘Yes. Georgiana at first. And of course I could follow Georgiana through the spells, once you helpfully decided to wake them properly for me. But now I think I should have paid more attention to you when I had you, Lily. Perhaps I chose the wrong daughter.’
Lily had daydreamed about her mother saying this for years. She had wished that she was the special one, who had all Mama’s attention. It was only later that she realised how lucky she had been, growing up unnoticed and unspoilt. Unshaped.
‘You’re not having either of them now, Nerissa.’ Lily’s father was standing behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders, and all at once her mother’s honeyed voice seemed sickly, and her affection was so obviously false that Lily felt stupid, and ashamed of the way her heart had quickened.
‘She’s very good, isn’t she?’ Henrietta muttered, sitting down heavily on Lily’s foot. ‘Even I almost liked her for a moment there. Don’t worry, Lily, I shall bite you if I think you’re falling under her spell.’
‘You left the girls in my care, Peyton dearest,’ her mother purred, ‘while you went off to be a hero, and made yourself completely useless.’
‘And you decided to forget about me, and everything we promised each other, and join a gang of dangerous conspirators,’ he spat back.
She shrugged. ‘Conspirators who are going to bring our world back to the way it should be. To overthrow a tyrannical government, and restore us to our former glory.’
‘Our former glory meant living a life of ease and luxury while we were oppressing most of our people,’ he yelled angrily, and Nerissa laughed.
‘Our people? Our people are the magicians, Peyton, and they all agree with me.’
‘I don’t!’ Lily was brave enough to gasp.
Her mother walked closer to the stage, and Lily heard the silk of her dress hissing over the carpet. ‘But you will, darling, don’t worry.’
‘I won’t! I never will!’ Lily said shakily. ‘I know Queen Sophia is doing things badly, but we can’t kill her. It’s just not right...’
She could feel the warmth of her father’s hands, resting on her shoulders, and his magic flowing into her, hesitant but loving. She sensed roots, growing down into the ground and drawing strong magic out of it, sending it out in branches over her head and sheltering her. It was so different from her mother’s charms – her father was lending her his strength, even though he had so little of it, and it was there for her to use as she wished, not to force her into anything.
‘Don’t expect your father to protect you, Lily. He really can’t, not against me. He never could stand up to me.’
‘What do you want with her?’ Lily’s father shouted. ‘You’ve already made Georgie into your puppet, and now you want Lily too? I won’t let you do this to them. I can’t stop your crazed plotting, but I won’t let you trap the girls in this madness.’
His wife stared back at him coolly. ‘Darling, you can have Georgiana back. With pleasure. What’s left of her. I want this one. She’s my daughter, far more than she’s yours. Where do you think she gets all her spirit from? And her strength? It isn’t from you.’
Lily felt Argent shiver behind her, just a twitch in the magic that she was so used to now. He was awake, she realised, and listening. Waiting to see what would happen. And he disagreed, she thought. She could hear the discordant notes as he growled inside her head, huge and furious. Her power did come from her father, from the Fell blood he’d passed on to her, not her mother at all. It was a fabulous relief. The tightness of fear in Lily’s chest eased a little, and she watched as her mother stepped closer again, her dark hair crackling as the magic whirled around her. She seemed taller, and infinitely more frightening.
We have something she doesn’t, Lily told herself. We have a dragon, and I have Georgie, and Peter, and Daniel and Father and Nicholas and Mary and everyone in the theatre. They love me for me, not because I could hurt them...
But remember that you could, Lily, Argent hummed inside her head. You do not understand yet, what you are able to do. Don’t stop yourself. I am here, and I will help if I can, but I am not sure you need me as much as you think you do.
‘I shall take the spells from Georgiana – she was too weak, just like the others. I should have known. I hoped – such a waste of time, all three of them. But this one...’ Nerissa Powers purred as she looked at Lily. ‘This is the child I should have borne to start with. My true daughter.’
‘I’m not!’ Lily yelled, suddenly too angry to be frightened. ‘I’m nothing like you!’
But her mother was advancing up the steps to the stage, and her father, Peter, Daniel and even Argent seemed frozen and powerless to stop her.
‘You can’t just take the spells out of Georgie,’ Lily told her, her voice shaking. ‘We tried, you know we did, that’s how you found us. It hurt her too much. She would have died if we had kept going. We have to do it bit by bit.’
‘Of course. Because she’s so terribly weak.’ Her mama smiled. ‘But you aren’t, Lily darling. And I am really very short of time.’
‘She wants to put the spells into you...’ Henrietta growled, pressing against Lily’s legs. ‘Get back, Lily, get away from her. I’ll s
top her. You run!’
‘But she’ll kill Georgie if she rips them out. She can’t do that, not her daughter.’ Lily shook her head, not able to believe that her mother would do such a thing.
‘Of course she would, she did it to the others, didn’t she? And if it goes wrong, putting the spells in will kill you too. Which isn’t to say that would be worse than what she’s planning anyway.’ Henrietta snapped her teeth sharply. ‘Run, Lily!’
Nerissa Powers laughed, an icy, grating sort of sound that she hadn’t bothered to make pretty. ‘I really wouldn’t, darling. You won’t get anywhere. Even with the dear little dog to protect you. Besides, you needn’t be afraid. I’m practically sure you’re strong enough to survive the transfer of the spells.’ She smiled, stretching her lips out across her teeth. ‘And if you aren’t, at least I will have tried. There are the others, of course, but I so wanted one of the spell-children to be mine. My daughter could be so much stronger than those smug Dysart girls... It should be our family who are the ones to bring it all back, and restore us to our glory.’ Her eyes glittered with excitement, and then suddenly dulled. ‘But there’s so little time left, only a few days. It has to work now!’
She turned abruptly away from Lily, and stooped over Georgie, stretching out her hands, as though to scoop up a handful of threads and tear them away.
‘No!’ Lily’s father roared, pushing Lily aside and striding towards her. But his wife only smiled, and put one hand up to stop him.
‘You won’t. I know you won’t.’ Her voice swirled around him like a line of music, rising and falling, and Lily could see all at once from his face why he had loved her. Why he still did, for he stopped, his hands raised to hurl his wife away from his daughter. He was trying to take that last step forward, Lily could tell, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. In case he hurt her.
But when their mother reached down, and wound her hand in Georgie’s hair to haul her up, as if she were nothing more than a doll, nothing she cared about, he flung himself at her at last.
He had delayed too long. He had been afraid to hurt Nerissa, but she didn’t care about hurting him. The surge of magic she threw at him so carelessly was strong enough to burn Lily’s eyes, leaving them spotted and flashing like the fireworks show over the river that Daniel had taken them to see.
He gasped and crumpled, and Nerissa turned away, not even waiting to see him fall. She stooped over Georgie once again, and when Lily raced to drag her sister away, her mama simply caught her, encircling her wrist in one iron hand. Lily kicked at her, and pulled, and even tried to bite her, but it was as if her mother simply didn’t notice. She wrapped Lily in her arm, dragging her close, pushing her face down towards Georgie’s, as if Georgie was to breathe the spells into her sister. Lily had an awful feeling that it might be her sister’s last breath of all.
‘No!’ She wrenched at her mother’s arm, turning her face away, and Henrietta darted in, sinking her teeth into the collar of Georgie’s dress and trying to haul her back across the stage. But she was such a small dog, and Georgie, even when she was thin and pale and sick, was just too heavy.
It was the way she ignored them that was so awful, Lily thought, as the fear set in and time seemed to run into a strange, dreamy slowness. Their mother couldn’t care less that Georgie looked half dead, and Lily was screaming, and her children’s father lay bleeding on the floor. All she cared about were the spells. And now she was going to do it. Lily could see no one could stop her. Argent was trying to help, but he was simply too big to dive into the fight without hurting Lily and Georgie too. He’d given up his scenery disguise now, and he was craning his neck close, hissing like an enormous snake, darting his head in and out but unable to strike.
Nicholas had raced out of the wings, and Lily thought he was trying to cast some sort of spell, but he was white-faced with panic and he could only make his fingers burn with greasy sparks. Daniel and Peter were standing behind him, watching in horror, but they had no magic – her mother could just squash them like flies.
If only Rose hadn’t gone, Lily thought, letting out a long, moaning wail, as her mother’s fingers forced her mouth open, and pulled on Georgie’s hair to tip up her face. No one could do anything – she was still burning from the spell that had struck down her father, but now she could feel the still coldness of the magic her mother was summoning up to drag the spells out of Georgie. It was so strong. There was no way that Georgie could live through it, Lily thought dully. It would wrench everything out of her, she would be dust and bones.
There was nothing Lily could do. There was nothing anyone could do. The spells would take her over, and if there was anything of her left at all, it would be buried deep inside. A velvety, gentle darkness seemed to rise up behind Lily’s eyes as she gave in. It was no use fighting.
Then something wrenched her back. Lily couldn’t tell what the noise was at first. It came in distinct parts – a strange, tearing bang and then a slow whistle, and Lily felt her mother’s grip loosen. She slid to the floor and wriggled painfully away, looking up and trying to see what had happened.
Peter was standing in front of their mother, both hands wrapped round the pistol from the bullet-catch trick. So Lily had been wrong – he might not have any magic, but it didn’t make him helpless.
Had he actually shot their mother? She had been protected against spells, but perhaps not a bullet...
Nerissa had dropped Georgie again, and she was cradling her arm. Lily could see dark blood staining the sleeve of her dress, but it was only a flesh wound, nothing that would stop her for long.
Peter stared back at her defiantly. He had only had one bullet in the gun, and now it was gone, and all he could do was glare.
Lily screamed as she saw her mother raise her hands, and caught the glittering fury in her eyes. Lily wasn’t sure if she recognised Peter as the mute servant boy who had lived at Merrythought for years. She wouldn’t have cared anyway. He was just an annoyance, a little fly, to be batted out of her way. Another searing blast of power hurled him over the side of the stage, and Lily, sobbing, watched him fall.
‘Nerissa Powers!’
Lily turned, and tried to run, and felt her mother’s magic settle over her like a fiery net, holding her down against the stage. But inside, her own magic leaped up in delight as Rose marched out of the wings in her neat grey cloak, with Gus padding delicately behind her. Surely Rose was strong enough to fight their mother?
From the corner of her eye, Lily saw Daniel creep forward, and huddle Georgie into his arms, pulling her away towards Argent, who was coiling and twisting up and down the stage, and hissing steam and smoke like an angry teakettle. He tucked Georgie affectionately up in one foreleg and hustled Daniel behind him, out of the way.
Remember how strong you are, Lily! he told her silently. Fight back! If I can join in without fear of hurting you more than I help, then I will!
Lily tried, but the net burned her as she wriggled, a strange icy burning that seemed to leave dark scorches across the magic inside her. She couldn’t move without it stinging her, and if she tried to summon her magic it seared across her skin, leaving her dizzy and sick.
‘You don’t deserve these children,’ Rose snarled, reaching down to pull Lily into her arms.
But Nerissa only laughed. ‘I’m only trying to make a better world for them to live in,’ she parroted, in a sweet singsong.
Even she didn’t believe it, Lily realised. She wasn’t really fighting for a world full of magic. It was all just an excuse. She enjoyed using her spells like this, that was all. She loved the chaos and fear she brought. She would be able to rule a whole country, Lily thought, shivering. That was what her mother wanted – nothing more or less than power.
Rose flinched as the net burned into her fingers, and in that moment of distraction, Lily’s mother struck, sending her power surging into the net sp
ell, so that it was suddenly so strong everyone could see it, stretched over Lily like a fiery web. It coiled and bit into Rose’s hands, pulling her magic out of her to strengthen the spell even more, and she gasped. The more the old magician struggled, the more of her power it drained out. Gus wound himself around her ankles, mewing frantically as Rose collapsed to her knees with Lily clutching at her, trying to hold her up.
Nerissa watched, smiling. ‘Poor Lily. Did you think she was going to save you? This old woman?’ Then she frowned. ‘What?’
For Lily’s eyes had widened, staring out beyond her mother to the back of the stage. Argent was rearing upright onto his hind legs, stretching out his enormous wings over his head so that they filled the whole space of the stage. He swooped the silvery folds around so that all of them were wrapped in a glittering cocoon.
Without realising, Lily’s mother had pushed away all that had been protecting her. By pinning Lily and Rose down to the ground, she had left herself exposed, and the dragon could strike without fear of hurting his friends.
She screamed as she saw him coming, his incredible speed born of pure magic and desperate anger. Argent had watched her hurt Lily, and her father, and Rose, who were all linked to him by their Fell blood, and now he could take his revenge. He darted towards her, his claws scraping great gouges in the boards, and snapped her up in his massive jaws, like a cat snatching a mouse, dangling the tiny creature up in the air.
Noooo! It was a roar of furious, fiery magic. You shall not!
Lily could feel how angry he was, and she could sense what he was about to do. This woman had hurt his children, and he wanted to bite and dash and rend and claw. He wanted her dead.
But Lily didn’t.
‘Don’t! Don’t tear her up!’ Lily gasped. ‘We can’t. If we do that, it means we’re murderers.’