by Webb, Holly
She laid the list down on the counter between them, and lifted Henrietta up to sit on the counter next to it. Her father peered at it and fetched the huge brass scales, and a pile of pretty silken bags in jewel colours. Then he began to climb the shelves all round the shop, pushing around a little ladder on wheels, and fetching down jars. Jars that fizzed when he took the heavy glass stoppers out. Jars that poured smoke. Jars that didn’t seem to have anything in them at all, and jars that were full of seething black stuff, and had their stoppers sealed down with wax.
‘This is rather a large order, would you like me to send it? Do you need any of it now?’ he asked, as he packed the little bags together into a box.
‘By messenger?’ Lily looked at him doubtfully. ‘I’m not sure I’d trust all this to a hired delivery boy, what if he dropped some of it?’
Her father smiled. ‘Ah, but I have my own delivery service now. Very fast. Very reliable. The only problem is that he tends to have to deliver through the attic windows – very few houses in London have a garden large enough for a dragon to land in.’
‘You’re using Argent as a – as a – delivery dragon?’ Lily gasped.
Her father shrugged. ‘He was bored at the theatre. He says Georgie only uses her magic for the most mundane things, and nothing exciting happens there since you left to be Rose’s apprentice.’
Rose had offered to train Georgie too, but Georgie said no. Politely. She’d had enough of magic, she said. It was still there inside her, but she preferred to stay at the theatre and work in the wardrobe. Daniel was trying to persuade her to go back to being his assistant in the illusionist’s act, but Georgie said because everyone knew who she was, the audience would just think that she was using real spells.
Even though magic was legal now, it was still quite rare. Some magicians had returned to London, and some had always been there, in hiding, but many more had settled abroad for ever. So magic was rare and exciting, and loved. Brave magicians had saved the queen, and brought back Princess Jane, after all. One hardly ever saw any spells, which meant that Daniel’s act was more popular than ever. All the audiences knew that the queen herself had lived at the theatre. Daniel had added a coat of arms and an awful lot of gold paint to one of the battered-looking boxes that were set into the walls of the theatre, and was calling it the Royal Box. He had also added a large sign across the front of the building reading, By Appointment to Her Majesty.
Lily thought it was a clever thing to do, even if it was rather cheeky. She supposed she ought to be pleased that Daniel had such a good head for business – after all, she didn’t want her sister to be living hand to mouth. Georgie was still claiming that there was nothing between her and Daniel, and that he was far too old for her. But she was almost fifteen, now, and Daniel was only a few years older. Besides, Lily had seen the ring that Daniel kept in the top drawer of his desk. It was in a little red velvet box, and it glittered. She had a feeling that Georgie would like it very much.
‘So, Peter is going to build Daniel a mechanical dragon instead,’ her father went on, tapping his fingers on the box so that the string coiled itself into a series of tight and complicated knots. ‘He’s going to design a smaller one that will be able to fly across the stage on a string, apparently. And Argent likes the back room here – good smells, he tells me. I have to say, he is the most marvellous advertisement, Lily. None of the other magic shops in the city – and there are more opening every day, you know – no one else has a dragon living in the storeroom. I don’t have the least worry about burglars, either.’
‘I ate the last one,’ a low, growly voice rumbled from down the little passageway. ‘A small bit of him, anyway. Your father made me stop. Peyton, I think your mermaid spell needs attention, it’s gone all green and glittery again.’
‘Mermaid?’ Lily yelped, and her father went red.
‘Only a little experiment!’ he said swiftly. ‘Just research, you know. But at a critical moment, I’m afraid. Goodbye, dearest. I’ll be sure to send Argent with your order later!’ And he hurried back into the storeroom, quickly pulling a black velvet curtain across the doorway behind him.
‘Your father...’ Henrietta sniffed, turning her head sideways and trying to see between the curtain and the wall. ‘Your father is enjoying himself far too much, Lily.’
Lily nodded. ‘I know. Mermaids... He and Argent are as bad as each other. I suppose he’s making up for all those years locked away without his magic, but I hope he isn’t doing anything stupid.’ She lifted Henrietta down and they went to the door, trying to listen to the smothered conversation that was going on behind the curtain. Her father was pacing up and down and muttering. By the sound of it, the mermaid spell wasn’t working quite as it should. She shook her head, laughing to herself, and then blinked as she touched the brass door handle and noticed the twitching in her fingers. If only she could have brought the ingredients back with her. The way Rose had described the spell was almost mouthwatering, and Lily wanted to start now. Her hands were itching, the magic gathering in her finger-ends.
She would hurry back – perhaps they might be able to start the early part of the spell, at least? Rose had so many little jars and boxes and bags piled up in her rooms in the palace attics, surely there was enough to be going on with?
As Lily eagerly pulled open the door, another girl, much younger than herself, stopped outside the window, staring a little anxiously at the display of glittering jars, and the gilt lettering that swirled across the glass, sparkling in the afternoon sun. Powers and Daughters, Magical Supplies and Spells, By Appointment to Her Majesty. She was twisting a wisp of her curly hair around her fingers, as though she was nervous.
Lily smiled at her, and held the door open.
‘Is there – is there really a dragon in there?’ the little girl whispered, pulling on her hair again. ‘One of the boys in my class said there was, but he’s always making things up. He said there was a gryphon living wild in St James’s Park, and none of us believed that. But then there are such things as dragons. I saw them, two of them, on the day of the jubilee...’
Henrietta stood up on her hind paws, patting at the girl’s knee. ‘He’s there. Ring the bell on the counter.’
The girl’s eyes widened to great dark circles as she realised it was Henrietta talking, and Henrietta smirked at her. ‘Just don’t let them try and turn you into a mermaid.’
‘Stop teasing,’ Lily told her sternly. ‘If you want to see him, I’d go down the road to the sweet shop first, and then offer him some chocolate,’ she told the little girl. ‘Dragons really are very fond of chocolate...’
For everyone who wanted to know the end of Lily’s story
ORCHARD BOOKS
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Orchard Books Australia
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First published in 2013 by Orchard Books
This ebook edition published in 2013
ISBN 978 1 408 31643 6
Text © Holly Webb 2013
The right of Holly Webb to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
E-pub conversion by Avon DataSet Ltd, Warwickshire
Orchard Books is a division of Hachette Children’s Books, an Hachette UK company.
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