by Webb, Holly
‘Look! It practically says that it’s real magic!’ the little fat man wailed. ‘The Queen’s Men will be round by the end of the day.’
‘It very carefully doesn’t say that.’ Daniel locked the frame again. ‘It only hints. Broadly. It’ll make us a fortune, Neffsky! Stop fussing. Besides, it’s my act, if anything goes wrong, the rest of you can deny all knowledge, and see me led off to the magicians’ cells.’
Lily peered out of her alcove, trying to read the poster. But all she could see was a black and white drawing of a man in evening dress, surrounded by what looked like rabbits, which she was sure couldn’t be right. Rabbits had nothing to do with magic. She craned her neck further, and managed to read the curly black lettering. ‘The Amazing Danieli will amaze you with his fantastical illusions…’ she whispered.
Neffsky turned round, and stomped back inside the theatre, still muttering angrily. Daniel waited until he’d gone inside, glanced around quickly, and then took two enormous strides and caught Lily’s arm, making her squeak in horrified surprise.
‘Off to fetch the Queen’s Men, were we? Well, you can give them a message from me.’ His voice was gruff, but Lily felt certain that was half put on. Close up, he looked even younger than she’d thought, only three or four years older than Georgie, she was sure. ‘Tell them—’
‘Lily!’ Georgie dashed after her, and Henrietta barked furiously, harrying Daniel’s ankles. ‘Leave her alone, let go of her, you beast!’
In her fright, Georgie had let go of the glamour spell, and her face was changing even as she spoke. Lily felt her skin tighten over her bones, and glanced down to see her dress changing back to the pink muslin she had been wearing before the glamour took effect.
‘What the…’ Daniel was staring at them, his mouth half-open, then he suddenly glanced around the street, grabbed hold of Georgie too, and dragged them both inside the theatre.
Lily struggled violently as the tall boy, Daniel, hauled them along. She had a vague picture of gilt, and red velvet, and double doors under a sweeping staircase, leading into a hall full of delicate gilt-and-red chairs. It was all seen in flashes, as she pulled and wriggled, and tried to free herself.
‘Stop it,’ Daniel snapped, as she tried to bite his wrist. ‘You little hell-cat!’
‘Let go of me then! And stop hurting my sister. Look at her, she’s fainting! Georgie, Georgie, what is it? Get off me, you!’ Lily pulled, and then flung herself at Daniel’s legs, and at last he let go of her with a grunt, clearly worried he was going to drop her sister. Lily found herself thankful for his manners. One did not drop young ladies.
Georgie was lying collapsed against Daniel’s arm. Her eyes had rolled up in her head, so that only the whites were showing, and her skin had paled to about the same colour.
The boy looked down at her in horror. ‘What’s the matter with her?’ He was holding Georgie with both hands now, and he carried her over to another little velvet chair, and laid her down in it, fanning her face with one hand.
Lily pushed him out of the way and seized Georgie’s hands, chafing them anxiously, and calling to her, but there was no response.
Henrietta jumped up onto the next chair, and sniffed Georgie crossly. ‘She’ll be perfectly all right. It’s all nerves. You, pick me up.’ This was addressed to Daniel, who obeyed her, looking as though his morning had gone very, very wrong.
‘Hen-ri-etta!’ Lily hissed. ‘What are you doing? You’re talking!’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Lily! The man has seen you transform from an old lady into a ten-year-old. He’s hardly going to balk at a talking dog.’
‘It is a little surprising still,’ Daniel said meekly.
‘Really?’ Henrietta put her paws on his shoulder, and examined his face closely, sniffing his ears with careful attention. ‘Clean linen,’ she noted approvingly. ‘And nicely trimmed ear hair. You can trust him, Lily. Though you missed a spot shaving this morning, just here, did you know?’
‘Sorry, I haven’t been doing it that long…’
‘Hmm. Anyway, Lily, he’s certainly trustworthy. Besides, he’s a magician too, we saw the poster.’
‘Oh, no, I’m not. My magic is all tricks,’ Daniel explained, and Lily thought there was a wistful note in his voice. ‘Designed to deceive an audience from a distance. You – you’re real magicians? Aren’t you?’ His voice was desperately hopeful. ‘Are you a girl in disguise too?’ he added, staring at Henrietta.
‘I most certainly am not!’ Henrietta snapped. ‘Why does everyone assume I’m something other than a dog?’
‘So you do tricks with all those rabbits?’ Lily asked. The rabbits had intrigued her.
Daniel blinked. ‘Artistic licence. There are actually only two rabbits. But they are white ones, and very well trained.’
‘What have rabbits got to do with magic?’ Lily frowned, but Daniel was no longer looking at her.
‘Hey! I don’t think you should be waving that around! Miss, please!’
Georgie had come out of her trance, and was sitting up straight on her chair. But she was as white-faced as ever, and her eyes were blazing an unnatural jewel-like blue. The fire in them was made even brighter by the reflection of the white fireball she was nursing between her hands. She seemed to be poised to hurl it at Daniel.
‘Georgie, don’t! Henrietta says we can trust him!’ Lily cried.
But Georgie didn’t even seem to hear her. She stood up jerkily, turning the ball of flame over in her hands. Despite their brightness, her eyes seemed blank, as though there was no Georgie behind them. She cupped the ball of fire closer, and seemed to smile as its heat flushed her cheeks a little. And then she threw it, straight at Daniel.
He stood there, aghast, as Georgie crumpled slowly to the ground, and Lily and Henrietta raced to save him. The fireball flew through the air, and Henrietta leaped after it, batting at it with just the tip of one outstretched paw, and howling.
The flames seemed to stall in midair for just a second, long enough for Lily to seize it, scream as the white flames blistered her fingers, and hurl it through the double doors into the theatre, where it collided with one of the little velvet chairs and exploded.
‘Did it burn you? Lily, show me! It singed my claws, it must have burnt you.’ Henrietta tugged Lily’s skirt angrily with her teeth. ‘Show me!’ Her voice was rising to a howl.
‘It’s all right,’ Lily said weakly, crouching down and opening her hands to show the little dog. ‘I thought it had too – it felt as though it had. But there aren’t any marks. It’s Georgie’s magic – maybe it doesn’t hurt me in the same way it would someone else. It probably would have crisped you,’ she added wearily to Daniel, who was stooping over Georgie, looking anxious.
‘She’s fainted again.’
‘Making quite a habit of it,’ Henrietta muttered. She stalked over to Georgie, and licked her face lavishly.
‘Is that hygienic?’ Daniel murmured shakily, but then he shut his mouth with a snap when Henrietta turned round and eyed him meaningfully.
Georgie twisted and moaned, and then started to sit up. ‘Oh, you didn’t…’ she murmured, wiping a wobbly hand across her face. ‘Lily, did you let her…’
Lily glared at her. ‘I can’t believe you’re cross with me! Georgie, you nearly killed him! And who knows how much of our gold buying a new chair will take!’
‘What are you talking about? Why do we need a chair? I have the most dreadful headache,’ Georgie whispered, pressing her hands to the sides of her head.
‘You deserve one! You don’t even know you did it, do you?’ Lily yelled at her furiously. ‘You threw a ball of fire at him! You exploded a chair!’
‘I’m sure I did not!’ Georgie folded her arms, and glared, but then she saw the way Daniel was eyeing her, and her mouth trembled. ‘I didn’t… How could I do that and not remember?’
‘You did look strange,’ Lily admitted. ‘Like you did that time you were sleepwalking years ago, do you remember? The s
ame odd look in your eyes – they were open, but you weren’t really seeing anything.’
‘She smells different,’ Henrietta hissed to Lily, in a secretive sort of whisper that she clearly meant everyone to hear. ‘A musky sort of smell. Like your mother’s magic.’
‘Listen,’ Daniel was glancing around anxiously. ‘You’d better come into my office – this is my theatre, you see. I inherited it, last year, from my uncle. We can’t have this sort of conversation out here. There are rehearsals going on – we’re lucky the sword-swallowers are out in the back yard having a row, or they’d have seen your little chair-exploding incident. I shall have to say I was experimenting with some new pyrotechnics for my act.’ He sighed. ‘They’ll believe that, they all think I’m only a deluded child anyway. Come on. Safer in here.’ He took Georgie’s arm, and led her to a door tucked away in one corner of the hall.
Daniel’s office was a tiny little room, which seemed to be used to store everything that people couldn’t find a place for anywhere else. Lily heaved a tigerskin rug off one of the chairs, and Henrietta sat down nose to nose with it, admiring the teeth.
‘Who are you?’ Daniel asked, sweeping a pile of papers onto the floor, and sitting down on the edge of his desk.
Lily and Georgie exchanged glances. How much did they trust Henrietta’s judgement? How much should they tell him? He was obviously interested in magic, even if his own was all faked. But if he was too interested, he might be able to tell someone where they were.
Lily sighed. They’d already destroyed one of his chairs, not to mention trying to kill him. And he had a trustworthy sort of face. ‘Lily and Georgiana Powers,’ she told him, burrowing her hand into Georgie’s.
‘Powers? I’ve read about you!’ Daniel’s eyes lit up. ‘The same family as Alethea Sparrow! The – er – blood-drinking one… You live in that house on the island, off the Devon coast somewhere.’
‘Merrythought? You’ve read about us?’ Lily asked curiously.
Daniel nodded. ‘You’re one of the old families. I’ve read up on all of them. Actually, I didn’t know there were any Powers left.’ He shook his head, his eyes shining. ‘I can’t believe it. That was a glamour! I’ve seen a glamour!’
Georgie shivered. ‘I suppose we’ve been shut up on the island, since the Decree. Hardly anyone would know.’
Daniel nodded. ‘And the Queen’s Men like it that way, I’ll bet. So…are you living in London now?’ he asked hopefully. He looked like a little boy in a sweet shop. Lily could tell he was desperate to see more magic. Real magic.
Henrietta sniffed. ‘We’d like to be. It turns out it’s rather difficult to find lodgings for two girls and a dog.’
‘Look…’ Daniel frowned, obviously thinking hard. ‘Our new variety show opens next week, and The Amazing Danieli – that’s me – has top billing. Perk of owning the theatre, though I’m beginning to think it was some sort of midsummer madness. The rest of the acts aren’t happy, they think we’re going to get into trouble, and frankly, just now no one thinks the act is good enough. It needs something different. Something extra.’ He gave Lily a sideways, hopeful glance.
‘Three rabbits?’ she suggested innocently. Daniel ignored her.
‘If I let you live here, couldn’t you help me with the act somehow?’
‘Do you want to get arrested?’ Henrietta demanded. ‘Surely a magic show is asking for trouble as it is! Now you want it to look more authentic?’
Daniel nodded. ‘Obviously we’d have to be very careful. But you could advise me, couldn’t you? Suggestions? Everyone loves a little magic – or what looks like it.’
‘But they don’t!’ Lily told him despairingly. ‘We couldn’t find anywhere to stay last night, and we ended up sleeping in the British Museum. In the Treasonous Objects exhibit. People don’t love magic a bit, they think we’re all mad murderers!’
Daniel shook his head. ‘No. No, you see, that’s the thing. All those magical objects were left to the museum by an old lady – she wasn’t a magician, but she loved magic, and she’d collected all that stuff. Her family had some sort of magic shop, they made a lot of money out of it.’
‘Some of it isn’t anything to do with magic,’ Lily pointed out. ‘A lot of it was fake, and practically everything had the wrong labels.’
‘All saying it was much nastier than it really is, I know. She left the museum a lot of money, that Lady Amaranth Sowerby. Millions. But they only got the money if they displayed her collection. So they did – but to keep the queen happy, they had to call it Treason. And they buried it all in the darkest corner they could find. I should think I’m the only person who ever visits, and I’ve only been twice – the museum guard recognised me. I don’t want him tipping off the Queen’s Men.’
‘So people don’t hate us quite that much?’ Lily said slowly.
Daniel looked thoughtful. ‘There’s a lot of bad feeling about magicians still, I grant you that. With old Queen Adelaide – the widowed queen, you know – with her still going everywhere covered in black lace and jet jewellery, it’s hardly surprising. But magic itself – the pretty things magicians used to do every so often, paper birds, the jewelled flowers. People remember that, and they miss it. Plus it’s forbidden, so it’s exciting, you see. That’s the sort of thing I do in my act – beautiful, and a little bit scary. Exciting! But it could be so much better if I knew more about real magic.’ He looked from Georgie to Lily, pleadingly. ‘I could let you live at the theatre. It’d be an exchange.’
‘You’d like Georgie to make a habit of throwing balls of fire into your audience?’ Lily shook her head doubtfully.
‘No, no, of course not. But dressed in the right sort of robe – she’s very pale. We could pass her off as some sort of Nordic magical princess… Magic’s not outlawed abroad, remember. She could assist me in the act. You both could! That would be better than rabbits, most definitely.’
‘We’re supposed to be hiding!’ Georgie hissed. ‘Not appearing on a stage in front of hundreds of people!’
‘Hundreds might be a slight exaggeration,’ Daniel sighed. ‘Although if the new act is a success…’
‘Why aren’t you racing off to fetch the Queen’s Men yourself?’ Lily asked suddenly. ‘Isn’t it treason not to report us?’
Daniel shrugged. ‘Not everyone believes that magic should be outlawed. One mad magician, and a whole race are driven underground? Hardly fair. I’ve read a lot of magical history, while I was planning the act – and even that could have me imprisoned, the rules are so strict. I had to do a lot of hanging around on street corners, buying books from men who didn’t have names. But one of the things I realised was that magicians were very rich, and not very popular, even after the Talish invasion was driven back. Getting rid of them was a good move for Queen Sophia – or whoever it was advising her.’
‘You sound like our mother,’ Georgie said, and she shivered, and looked at Lily. ‘Just a moment,’ she murmured, pulling Lily aside, Henrietta trotting after them. ‘I trust him…especially if I really did try to set him on fire. He may be rather – deluded – but we don’t have much choice! Lily, we need someone who can help us. We don’t know anything – remember how everyone stared just because we had no gloves? It’s going to be like that all the time. If we try to keep going on alone, sooner or later we’ll betray ourselves utterly.’
Lily frowned at Daniel. ‘If we help you in this magic act, you’ll really let us live here?’
Daniel nodded. ‘There’s a warren of back rooms behind the stage. I’m not saying it’ll be luxurious, but it’s warm.’
‘I suppose it’s the last place she’d think of looking for us.’ Lily nodded.
Daniel frowned. ‘Someone’s looking for you?’ he asked.
‘Not the Queen’s Men. Our mother. We’ve run away,’ Lily admitted.
‘What? Why?’
Lily shook her head. ‘I don’t think we can tell you that,’ she murmured apologetically. ‘We have to hide. That’s all
we can say.’
But Daniel didn’t look satisfied. ‘How old are you?’ he asked Lily bluntly.
Lily swallowed. ‘Ten,’ she said quietly. ‘Georgie’s twelve,’ she added, as though that made a huge difference.
‘Ten…’ Daniel sat down heavily. ‘You really are children. Your glamour – I was still half thinking you were older than me… And you’ve run away from home. No, this is wrong…’
‘You aren’t far off a child yourself.’ Henrietta sniffed his trouser legs, and eyed him shrewdly. ‘What are you, sixteen? Seventeen?’
Daniel reddened, and she nodded to herself. ‘Thought so.’
‘You’re helping us, how can that be wrong?’ Georgie seized his hands. ‘We need you, and you need us! We ran away from our mother because she’s using my magic.’ She frowned. ‘It’s hard to explain. She wants me to do something bad.’ She pulled away from Daniel, sitting back on her knees on the floor. ‘She’s spoilt my magic, I think… When I’m frightened, or angry, something else takes over. I really didn’t mean to hurt you, sir,’ she promised him earnestly. ‘It wasn’t me… You can’t send us back to her, you see that, don’t you?’
‘But I’ll be using you just as much as she was!’ Daniel shook his head.
‘It isn’t the same at all!’ Lily cried. ‘You’re helping. We’re just helping you back.’
‘And it isn’t such a good bargain,’ Georgie muttered. ‘I will have to stop doing any magic at all.’ She rubbed her hands wearily across her eyes. ‘I was trying to keep the glamour going, and fight you off, sir. That’s when whatever’s buried in me started to work. If I don’t let my magic loose, then no one can twist it out of my hands, can they?’
She sounded almost relieved, Lily thought. In fact, there was a faint smudge of a smile at the corner of her mouth. Lily watched her, the lines between Georgie’s eyes smoothing away as she suddenly realised she needn’t do any more magic. That she mustn’t. Georgie looked happier than she’d ever seen her, Lily realised, starting to frown herself.
How could they be so different? Lily could still feel the prickling excitement of the magic lying just underneath her skin. She felt as though she had a candle flame hidden in her hand, and the light was shining through her fingers. Her magic was desperate to escape, and she wanted it to. She wanted it to dance and twirl and make fireworks. Her fingers itched to practise more spells. She remembered the words of her father’s letter – she couldn’t imprison her magic either.