Lily and the Shining Dragons (10 page)

The girls scurried across the entrance hall, and disappeared into the darker, panelled passage that housed the study, and the billiard room.

‘He isn’t there,’ Henrietta promised, sniffing thoroughly at the study door. ‘I’m quite certain. One can tell him by those disgusting cigars.’

Lily turned the door handle, which was so well-oiled it didn’t even squeak, and they slipped into the room. It was high-ceilinged, but somehow still dark and cave-like, heavy velvet curtains half-obscuring the windows, and the furniture hulking and ugly.

‘I don’t think he let Aunt Clara decorate in here,’ Georgie muttered.

‘Where would a railway almanac be?’ Lily asked, ignoring her.

Henrietta leaped up on to the desk chair, and went sniffing through the papers. ‘He must write a great many letters,’ she commented, dislodging a sheet of stamps, which went fluttering to the floor.

‘Be careful,’ Lily whispered crossly. ‘We don’t want him to know we were here.’ She stooped to pick up the stamps, dull little reddish squares, printed with the queen’s face. She looked a great deal younger than she had for real, driving past in that carriage, a few weeks back. Lily had felt sorry for her then – she’d seemed so brave and tired. But that was before she had heard about Fell Hall, and before the Queen’s Men had stolen her friend. The sheet of stamps shook in her fingers, and Georgie put a hand on her arm. ‘Don’t tear them! Then he really would know we’ve been here.’

‘I’d like to,’ Lily nearly spat. ‘And worse. I hate the queen!’

‘You see, sir?’ a sad, sweet little voice spoke from the doorway, and Lily turned slowly to look over her shoulder.

Cora Dysart was standing by the half-open door, looking tragically up at a red-faced man in a dark uniform. The uniform they had seen at the theatre, when the Queen’s Men came visiting. Behind Cora was her sister, with another man who looked so like them he had to be their father. Jonathan Dysart, the counsellor to the queen. The hidden magician.

‘We were so shocked by the things they said yesterday.’ Cora shook her head tragically. ‘Of course, so many people know that our family were once magicians – I suppose they thought we would be in sympathy!’ She sobbed, and leaned against her father’s arm. Only the girls in the study could see the malicious glint of her pale green eyes. ‘I’ve never been so grateful that we escaped the curse of our family’s blood!’

Penelope nodded, and shuddered, her hair falling forward. Lily saw that the curl she had bespelled was still there, coiled into a P. As she watched, Penelope tugged at it, and scowled as it sprang back into place.

She should have taken the spell off before they left, Lily realised dully. She had been stupid, leaving it for them to find. She felt rather pleased that they hadn’t been able to remove her little charm – but that was probably why the Dysarts had decided to betray them. If they couldn’t take off Lily’s spell, it meant she was stronger than they were. And instead of fighting her, or racing her and Georgie to carry out the plot, they’d decided to let someone else do the work.

It was really rather clever.

L
ily swirled and swam and floated, wisps of pale green coiling around her, and tugging her back up to the surface again.

She wasn’t swimming. She was lying on a bed, and the bed was moving, juddering up and down.

She felt sick.

In fact, now she thought about it, she was going to
be
sick.

‘Don’t!’ Georgie snapped. ‘I can tell you’re about to, and I haven’t a basin or anything. And the windows are screwed shut. So just don’t!’

Lily swallowed painfully, and opened one eye, just a very careful slit. It felt as though she had to tear her lids apart.

‘What happened?’ she whispered. ‘Where are we?’

‘In a carriage, on the way to Fell Hall.’ Georgie’s eyes were so wide with fear that they seemed to have stretched. She gave a high, unnatural laugh. ‘So we shan’t need a railway almanac after all.’

Lily nodded, and then moaned as the pale green tendrils wrapped all round her again. It was as if an essence of the Dysart sisters had been poured into her skull. She vaguely remembered now. ‘A spell…’ she murmured.

‘Yes. Louis was right – the Queen’s Men do use magic. It was in a bottle. He threw it at us, don’t you remember?’

‘Almost. Why am I so much worse than you?’

Georgie sighed. ‘You fought more. And you had more magic to overcome in the first place. You’ve been unconscious for over a day, I think. I was too, for a while. The spell seemed to hit you first, as though it knew the stronger one to go for. But once you fainted, it felt like someone strangling me. It was morning, when I woke up, and we’ve been travelling all through the day. We’ve only stopped to change horses, three times. And now it’s getting dark again.’

‘They didn’t take Louis too?’ Lily blinked wearily. ‘I saw him in the passageway.’

‘Penelope and Cora told the officer that Louis had no magic – it was only us. But even then he was fighting, and saying it wasn’t fair, we hadn’t done anything. I tried to tell him that it was – it was all right.’ Her voice wobbled as though she didn’t really think it was. ‘Aunt Clara hustled him away. She said that we must have bewitched him.’

Lily suddenly hauled herself upright, and then moaned, pressing her hand against her mouth.

‘Sit still!’ Georgie hissed. ‘I can’t travel all the way to Derbyshire in a coach you’ve been sick in. And there’s no point calling for the coachman to stop, or anything like that – they won’t. I tried, when you wouldn’t wake up.’ She put an arm around Lily, gingerly. ‘I was worried about you – I wasn’t sure you’d ever wake up.’ She sighed. ‘I’d have been a lot nicer when you did, if it wasn’t for you almost being sick.’

‘Henrietta!’ Lily gasped, when she finally judged it was safe to move her hand. ‘What happened to Henrietta?’

Georgie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I don’t know. The spell took her too. I’m sorry, Lily.’

‘We left her behind?’ Lily whispered, as Georgie’s arms went round her.

‘We couldn’t do anything else. We were unconscious. And we can’t do anything now, Lily, before you try. The coach is all muffled up, like Aunt Clara tried to do with the house. I can hardly even feel my magic.’

‘But what will they do with her?’ Lily rubbed her cheek against Georgie’s pale pink sleeve, just as Henrietta used to. It was very soft, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Now that Georgie had told her, she could feel the enchantments round the coach. Her magic was squashed down inside her, and it was hard to breathe. ‘Aunt Clara doesn’t like dogs. What if they drown her, Georgie?’

‘They wouldn’t…’ But Georgie didn’t sound very sure. ‘Henrietta’s too clever. And she isn’t real, Lily, she’s painted. She probably only drowns in turpentine. If they try to drown her in the river, she’d just swim away, and adopt some other poor soul to be her slave.’

Lily sniffed. It might well be true, though she could tell that Georgie was just saying anything she could to cheer her up.

‘But what shall we do without her?’ she asked miserably, and Georgie sighed.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything. This was what we wanted, Lily, but I thought we’d be outside Fell Hall. Not shut in with the others. It’s all gone wrong. I’m scared.’

Lily hid her face in Georgie’s grubby sleeve. ‘Me too.’

‘We’re slowing down.’ Lily looked out of the window, but it was still too dark to see much, except for a glimmer of lamps.

‘Perhaps to change horses?’ Georgie suggested. ‘We’ve been travelling all night.’

‘Someone’s by the door,’ Lily whispered. She could hear scuffling, and then someone clearing their throat.

‘I’m about to open this door, missies, and I warn you now, I’m armed. With a pistol, and with more of what you got the last time.’

‘That spell…’ Lily’s eyes widened, and both girls shrank back against the dirty seat cushions.

The carriage door clattered open slowly, and the redfaced man glared in at them. The coachman was behind him holding up a lantern, and looking nervous.

‘Good. Good. You’re being sensible.’ The red-faced man lowered the hand that held the small blue glass bottle a little. ‘You may get out – to use the necessaries. But I’ll be outside the door, you hear me? You go one at a time, and I’ll be holding on to the other one, understand?’

The girls nodded, and hurried out of the carriage, allowing the man to march them to the small inn, and an unpleasant-smelling privy.

‘Remember I have your sister,’ he muttered to Georgie, as she bolted the door.

‘And you just behave, miss,’ he added to Lily. She nodded faintly. Walking had brought back her wish to be sick, and she had no intention of trying to escape. She was fairly sure she couldn’t, even if he had obligingly lain down and died.

Eventually Georgie came out, looking as pale as Lily. ‘It’s disgusting,’ she complained to their guard, who only shrugged.

‘You’re not living in a smart town house now, miss,’ he pointed out, pushing Lily through the door.

The privy smelled unbelievably bad, and Lily was sick – but at least she felt slightly better afterwards. For a few seconds, until the general misery of their situation overcame her again.

‘That really was a most uncouth noise,’ someone whispered, from behind the old towel that Lily had refused to touch. She had splashed the water from the jug on her face and hands, and dried it on her skirt. The towel looked as though it were breeding things. And now it was talking. Lily leaned against the dirty whitewash of the wall and sighed. The spell hadn’t worn off yet then. She was hallucinating.

‘Aren’t you going to talk to me?’ A little black face peered out from behind the greyish folds of the towel, and Lily sobbed.

‘Go away! It isn’t fair!’

‘I’m real, you idiot,’ Henrietta snapped. ‘Their spell wasn’t that good. Now, you have to smuggle me into that carriage; I can’t ride on the footplate any longer. I’m not a carriage dog, and I’ve already fallen off twice.’

Lily gaped at her for a second, and then the guard beat on the door, shouting at her to hurry, and she gave up wondering how Henrietta had managed it, and tore off the second layer of her petticoat, bundling Henrietta into it. Then she unlatched the door. ‘I’m sorry to take so long,’ she whispered. ‘I do feel so dreadfully sick, and there isn’t a bowl or anything in the coach. I’ve torn out my petticoat, you see. So if I’m sick again, at least I’ve got
something
.’

Georgie was staring at her suspiciously, but the guard simply nodded. Lily suspected it was his job to clean the carriage, and made herself wobble all the way back, clutching the petticoat to her mouth in a convincing manner.

She made herself wait until the coach was moving again before she put it down, and let Henrietta out.

‘You found her!’ Georgie squealed, and then put her hand over her mouth. They didn’t know how much the guard and the coachman could hear from the box. But the coach rumbled on.

‘She did not, I found
her
,’ Henrietta said proudly. She shook her ears. ‘Louis helped,’ she admitted.

‘Louis? Really?’ Lily looked surprised. ‘What happened?’

‘It took a while for them to put you into the carriage – I think they had to send for this one, it must have some kind of protection worked into it. Anyway, there was a little time, and they were so worried that you might wake up, no one was really watching me.’ Henrietta licked Lily’s cheek apologetically. ‘I didn’t want to leave you, but after what Louis had said about Fell Hall, I was sure that they were going to take you there. I needed to make sure I wasn’t left behind.’

Lily pulled her closer, wrapping the torn petticoat around the little dog more tightly. No one was going to take her away. ‘You’re so clever,’ she muttered thankfully.

Henrietta dipped her head gravely – although it was hard for her to look serious, swathed in lacy flounces as she was. ‘Yes. But even I couldn’t have done it without Louis. Probably.’

Lily frowned. ‘Last I saw of him, Aunt Clara was dragging him away somewhere.’

Henrietta sniffed in disgust. ‘
She
lost no time disowning you both. So shocked that she had been housing magic under her roof. Horrified that the little minxes might have corrupted her dear son. And so on and so on. She sent Louis upstairs, she didn’t want the officer looking too closely at him, in case he took it into his head to examine the rest of the family for magic. But Louis crept back down – he saw me coming out of the study. He was sure they’d send you to Fell Hall too. He smuggled me out of the kitchens under his jacket – which is more dignified than a petticoat, Lily, but I suppose you were doing your best with what you had at hand.’ She gave her another forgiving lick. ‘We were just in time to see this carriage draw up. And so I hid underneath it, and then jumped on to the footplate as you set off. Thank goodness the streets were too busy for them to drive fast. But then once we got on to the road out of London, and they picked up speed…’ She shuddered. ‘The first time I fell off I had to run after the coach for at least half a mile. Luckily, there was a farm cart, I had a chance to catch up.’ She sounded matter of fact, but Lily could see that one of her claws was half torn out of its pad, and there were traces of dried foam around her muzzle. The little pug had run after them until her paws bled.