by Webb, Holly
They crept back through the palace, making for the staircase, and dreading what they would find. They had beaten Gossamer – there was no doubt in their minds that he was gone, and the mask had gone with him, dragging him down into the water. It was back where it belonged, at least, and the bottom of the lagoon seemed the safest place for it to be. But that triumphseemed useless now, when they were going back to find Mr Fountain’s body.
Rose felt deathly tired as they stumbled along the passage to the staircase. Her soaked dress clung to her, and she was so cold. The brilliant lights of the palace seemed only to make it worse, and Gus was trembling.
When the duke walked up from the head of the staircase, Rose thought he might be a dream, some sort of odd vision that her cold mind had conjured up. But when Miss Fell followed him, and then a pair of servants carrying Mr Fountain in a litter made out of atorn-down tapestry, she blinked and realised that this was real. Gus leaped out of her arms, and went running towards his master, as Miss Fell directed the servants with her cane.
‘Here, lay him down here, where the light is better. I cannot work in that gloom you keep in those lower passages, Your Grace.’
The duke bowed, almost apologetically, and Rose glanced at Miss Fell, wondering if he’d been set free from his enchantment.
The old lady continued. ‘Really, I don’t know what you think you were doing, letting those dangerous criminals lurk about the city. And even in the palace! I know the history of the place is picturesque, but surely we are beyond such things in these modern times. It was very lax of you.’
Rose kneeled beside the litter as Miss Fell continued to harangue the duke. Bella and Freddie held Mr Fountain’s hands, and he was deathly white, but she could see that he was still breathing.
‘We caught him, sir,’ she whispered. ‘The mask destroyed him, he’s at the bottom of the lagoon – the mask too.’
She was almost sure his eyelids fluttered, but he said nothing.
The cracked old voice went on. ‘You will have to deal with your brother, you know. You were quite bewitched! It was an attempt to seize the throne, you cannot deny it this time.’
The duke sighed, and shrugged very slightly. Rose had a horrible feeling that Girolamo might already have been dealt with.
‘Your hair now, Isabella dear.’
Rose blinked, wondering if she was imagining things again, but Miss Fell held out a tiny pair of golden scissors to Freddie, and he cut off a long lock of Bella’s golden hair. Bella the vain hardly seemed to notice.
When Miss Fell pulled out a pair of white bone knitting needles, Rose simply leaned back against the wall and watched. She was no longer sure if she was asleep or awake. The old magician began to knit Bella’s hair, chanting the pattern of the stitches under her breath.
‘Knit one, purl one, knit two together, slip, slip and breathe. Cast on another year, and increase.’ The needles clicked together busily, and Rose’s vision blurred. She watched Miss Fell lay her glistening knitting over the hilt of the knife, and then someone shook her.
‘Rose, you have to help hold the knife. We have to pull it out together, you, me and Bella. Rose, wake up!’ Freddie sounded as exhausted as she was, which was hardly fair – he hadn’t encountered any dragons, and he wasn’t all wet.
‘Wake up!’
‘I am awake!’ she protested. She was only cold, that was all.
‘Come, dear child.’ Someone lifted her up, and a rich, caramelly voice murmured in her ear.
‘You speak English!’ Rose stared up at the duke indignantly. ‘But you made us think you didn’t understand a word we said!’
The duke smiled. ‘You have work to do.’
Bella pulled Rose over to her father, and placed her icy hand on the hilt of the knife with her own and Freddie’s. ‘Why are we pulling it out?’ Rose whispered wearily. ‘Won’t he bleed to death? We said wemustn’t…’
‘But we have the spell now, Rose,’ Bella snapped impatiently. ‘Miss Fell is going to knit him back together. Come on!’
The knife made Rose even colder – the metal seemed to have sealed itself to her fingers, as though they would blister and tear when she tried to pull them away.
‘Now pull,’ Bella whispered, and Rose cried out as the bespelled metal bit into her skin, sending a thousand snowflakes whirling through her veins. But the blade was easing slowly out of their master’s chest, leaving a horrid unnatural hole. Dark blood began towell out of it immediately, but then that strange lacy knitting, hair-fine, slid down the blade and smothered the cut, the blood dying Bella’s fair hair pink. Bella’s tears fell and glittered on it like crystals, so that the whole thing resembled an expensive scarf that some rich Venetian lady would drape around her elbows for a ball.
‘Is it working?’ Freddie looked up hopefully at Miss Fell.
‘What do we do with this?’ Rose was holding the knife now, its blade no longer burning her, but glinting dully in her hand, like some ancient weapon chipped out of stone. A faint cast of red washed over it, as she turned it in her hand. Blood again, like the maskedboys’ knives. But this time she hadn’t done it, had she? She shivered, and figures swam to the surface through the redness. Figures in uniform. Men on horseback. Rushing towards each other, screaming. And then lying still, in a quiet field.
‘What was that?’ she whispered, but no one else had seen.
‘I will take it.’ The duke lifted it out of her hand. ‘It would be best destroyed.’
Rose nodded, although she wasn’t sure if that meant he was actually going to destroy it or not. The duke handed the knife to one of his lackeys, who disappeared with it rather quickly, in case anyone might be about to argue. The duke smiled like velvet atRose when he saw her watching, and gave her a slight, respectful nod.
‘A very valuable artefact, dear Miss Rose,’ he murmured.
‘Did you catch him?’ Mr Fountain’s voice was faint and whispery, but everyone in the passageway turned, transfixed.
‘Yes. Yes, we did. Well – he got dropped in the sea by a dragon, and we’re practically certain he’s dead,’ Rose added, wanting to be accurate.
‘He looked dead,’ Gus agreed, nudging Mr Fountain’s chin lovingly.
‘He must be.’ The duke nodded. ‘Our esteemed Miss Fell almost had me free, but traces of the enchantment were lingering. Until suddenly they disappeared, like that!’ He snapped his fingers, and gave them a wolfish smile. ‘When he died.’
Mr Fountain sighed. Then he added thoughtfully, ‘And I’m not dead?’
‘Don’t be stupid, Aloysius,’ Miss Fell snapped.
‘I was just checking,’ he told her humbly, and then he lay back, smiling to himself, and the hole in his waistcoat sewed itself together again, with even fancier embroidery than before.
The ship was far grander than the one they had sailed across the channel on, and even the sailors wore an elegant striped livery, and snow-white trousers.
It seemed to cut through the water at an incredible speed, running before the wind under full sail.
‘I had hardly believed these things existed,’ Mr Fountain mused, staring up at the full load of sail on the three masts. ‘A fairy tale, that’s all. No wonder the Arsenal has such high walls, with secrets such as this behind it. Twice as fast as it should be, at least. Whatthe Lords of the Admiralty wouldn’t give…’ He sighed. ‘I should think it’ll be gone in minutes, once we dock at Dover. They won’t be letting those nosy Royal Navy types get anywhere near.’
Talis was mobilising its troops, Venetian spies had told the duke. Grand military ‘displays’ were being held in every town, on the vaguest of excuses, and the reserves were being called up. It had not been thought sensible for the little English party to travel home over land, and the duke wished to make it clear that he wasgrateful. His Grace had been left deeply in their debt, after they rescued him from Gossamer’s spell. He had presented Mr Fountain with a heavily sealed document for the king, which Mr Fountain was keeping tucked inside his waistc
oat. Every so often he slid a hand in to pat it lovingly, and a gloating little smile flitted over his face.
‘What actually makes it go faster?’ Rose asked, hanging over the side and staring at the wake creaming away behind them.
‘If I knew that I’d be the richest man in England.’ Mr Fountain coughed, and smiled to himself. ‘Well. I’d be significantly richer, anyway. For a start, Rose, every plank has been put together with magic. Every rope, every scrap of sail. Enormous task. The number of magicians they must have had working on it. And fully half the crew must be magic-workers of some kind.’
‘You would think that if they’re that clever they could make it a smoother journey.’ Miss Fell sniffed in a ladylike manner. ‘Don’t slop that beef tea, William.’ She refused to call him Bill.
‘Oh no…’ Mr Fountain stared at Bill, who was concentrating so hard on carrying the two-handled cup that his tongue was sticking out. But Bill glared back at him fiercely, and Mr Fountain sighed, and apparently decided it would be cruel to make him spill it.
‘You will drink this.’ Miss Fell eyed Mr Fountain beadily, and very much in the manner of an aunt. ‘I have spent considerable time explaining the recipe to the cook, and I had to prevent him from adding all sorts of unsuitable things.’
‘Flavour, possibly…’ Mr Fountain muttered, as he sipped the beef tea with his eyes screwed up.
Miss Fell diplomatically ignored him, and seated herself graciously in the basket chair next to his. They had been given a small area of the stern deck as a sort of outdoor drawing room, as Miss Fell insisted that fresh air was vital to Mr Fountain’s recovery. Accordingly, he was muffled from head to toe in blankets and made to sit outside even when it was snowing.
‘Rose!’ Miss Fell thumped her stick on the deck in a peremptory fashion, and Rose turned away from the rail at a run, before remembering and slowing to a decorous, ladylike trot.
Miss Fell watched approvingly. ‘Good girl. Now. It seems to me that a long sea voyage is the perfect opportunity to make sure that your education is progressing properly. It would be so easy for Aloysius to forget those elements of magic that are so important to a young lady. Pass me that work bag, my dear.’
Rose cast an anguished look at Mr Fountain, but he appeared to be asleep, in the most cowardly way, and Bella and Freddie were watching for whales on the other side of the deck. With the quietest of sighs, she passed the bag to Miss Fell.
‘Now, have you been taught embroidery?’
Rose shook her head. ‘Plain sewing only, ma’am. I can manage cross-stitch, but nothing fancy.’
Miss Fell tutted. ‘I might have known. So short-sighted.’ She glared at Mr Fountain, who emitted a well-timed snore. ‘A young lady should always be able to embroider. And as a magician you will find it remarkably useful.’ She gave Rose a sharp look as shehanded her a piece of linen, and some rose-pink embroidery thread. ‘Try a flower, perhaps. And don’t even think of telling me that you are not a young lady.’
Rose shut her mouth with a snap.
‘You are. Who knows what happened – an accident, some dreadful mishap…’ She stared off into the distance, where grey sky met grey sea. ‘We shall find out.’
‘Will we?’ Rose ran the needle sharply into her finger, and gasped.
‘Tch. Don’t stain the linen, girl. Some common sense, please. Of course we will.’ She regarded Rose thoughtfully. ‘Don’t you want to?’
Rose sat staring at the drop of blood, rising like a jewel on her fingertip, and wondered. Whose blood was it, apart from hers? Did it matter? Did she even care? She had always promised herself she didn’t, but that had been a way to survive the orphanage, without pretending to herself that she was really a lost duchess, as half the other girls did. Then it had been a defence against Susan and her cruel teasing about charity girls and changelings. Rose had not cared, fiercely.
But now she did. Why not admit it? She wanted a family who could make ships full of magic, or see messages in the stars.
Miss Fell watched her expectantly, the glittery old eyes following every expression that crossed Rose’s face. She sat with her hands folded on her work bag, but one of the ivory knitting needles was twisted in her fingers, and it was starting to splinter.
Rose didn’t see any of this. She was staring at Bella, leaning over the side, and laughing with Freddie. Was that what she wanted? To be a little lady? She thought of Bella, holding the hilt of the knife in her father’s chest, her face anguished.
‘I should like to know.’ She nodded decisively. ‘But whoever I really am, I shan’t be anyone else apart from me. They gave me up, however it happened. So I don’t belong to anyone, only myself, and I shall stay that way.’
ORCHARD BOOKS
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First published in 2010 by Orchard Books
This ebook edition first published in 2010
ISBN 978 1 40831 266 7
Text © Holly Webb 2010
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.
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Orchard Books is a division of Hachette Children’s Books,
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