Lily (15 page)

‘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 same 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.

Georgie laughed. ‘You’ve never been made to do it, Lily. I can see you thinking how stupid I am.’

Lily shook her head quickly. ‘No! It’s only – how can you not want magic, when it feels like this?’ She spread her fingers out, smiling to herself, and flexing the power inside her.

Georgie only shivered. ‘It makes my skin crawl. I think I’d prefer the pretend kind.’

‘Are you sure?’ Daniel asked, still frowning. ‘You do want to do this?’

But when the girls looked at each other and nodded, his frown faded, and all of a sudden he laughed out loud. He sprang up, and grabbed Lily’s arms, swinging her round in his excitement. ‘We’ll have the best act you can imagine. To think I was relying on those commonplace rabbits!’ Then he set Lily down, and added, much more seriously, ‘And if something should happen to…well, go
wrong
, you can simply blame it on the magic act. You were practising illusions, that’s all. If you’re known to be my associates, everyone will think your magic is faked, like mine.’

Georgie’s smile grew even wider. ‘Of course,’ she murmured, with a breath of relief.

Henrietta sniffed. ‘I have a distinguished pedigree, you know. Descended from champions. If I had known I was to become some sort of circus creature, I would have stayed in that painting.’ But her tail was twitching, and her tongue was sticking out with excitement.

Lily knew exactly how she felt.

I
n the space of an hour, they had found both a home and a job, Lily realised, looking around the rather dusty room at the back of the theatre that Daniel had shown them into. It was a little smaller than her bedroom back at Merrythought, but she didn’t care. Henrietta was certain that Daniel was to be trusted, and Lily believed her, even more so after he had promised them lunch. She was a little worried though. Daniel had been full of plans, as he hurried them through the passageways. And his plans sounded time-consuming. Rehearsals. Costume fittings.