Lily and the Shining Dragons (5 page)

‘A
re you sure about this?’ Daniel muttered, a little later. Behind him, Sam stood twisting his cap in his huge hands. He looked like a caged bear next to Lady Clara, who was edging delicately away from him. He had the same bewildered, worried look as the poor dancing bear Lily had seen once when she and Henrietta were exploring the city. It was the only time she had come close to revealing her magic. She had wanted to heal the wretched creature, and tear apart the iron muzzle around its jaws. Instead she’d had to walk away feeling sick, with Henrietta trembling in her arms. Sam had that same air of helpless strength. He didn’t want them to go, but he couldn’t deny that the girls ought to be with family.

‘We should go. My husband and Louis – your cousin, girls – will be expecting me for luncheon.’

‘Now?’ Sam growled, more bear-like than ever.

‘Well, naturally,’ Aunt Clara replied in a frosted voice.

‘But the show – tonight… You haven’t found anyone to replace us. Shouldn’t we stay?’ Georgie protested, and then her voice died away as Aunt Clara’s magic spilled out over them. ‘I suppose not…’ she whispered.

‘We can change it,’ Daniel said dully. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll go back to the original act. Until I can find someone else.’

‘But you’ll come back? Visiting?’ Sam asked, and Lily caught his hand. Her own disappeared inside it.

‘That would not be appropriate,’ Aunt Clara snapped.

Lily looked up at him. She didn’t even need magic to tell Sam silently that of course they would, appropriate or not. He nodded, the anxious creases round his eyes fading a little. ‘You won’t be too grand for us, then?’ he whispered to her, and she rolled her eyes. ‘We won’t be staying,’ she whispered back. ‘But she might know where Father is. We have to try.’

Aunt Clara’s coachman was waiting in her landau outside the theatre, wearing a thick uniform coat and a top hat, and looking hot. The horse, a beautiful grey with the shiniest of harnesses, looked bored, but he rolled a nervous eye towards Aunt Clara as she swept out of the theatre. Lily would almost have sworn he stood up straighter.

‘She’s like Mama, isn’t she?’ Georgie whispered, and Lily nodded. Their mother had terrified everyone at Merrythought. The whole house had been ruled by her moods. If she wanted quiet, the maids went about in stocking feet. It seemed that Aunt Clara ran her house on the same lines – but without magic.

The girls climbed into the carriage silently. They’d only lived at the theatre for a few weeks, but it felt more like home to Lily than Merrythought ever had, and she hated to leave. Daniel and Sam were on the front steps, with Maria, and some of the artistes. Aunt Clara had flinched visibly at the sight of them, but Lily and Georgie didn’t care.

‘I’ve packed for you,’ Maria muttered, reaching up, and stuffing a battered carpetbag into Georgie’s arms. She glared suspiciously at Aunt Clara, who stared through her, as if she simply couldn’t see her. ‘Just a few little things. To help you keep your end up with Madam Fancy.’

Henrietta barked loudly as the carriage trundled away – short, painful barks that made Lily’s skin crawl. Henrietta couldn’t do spells herself, but that noise came close to magic. The sad little crowd on the steps drew closer to each other, shivering, and Sam started forward, as though he meant to chase the carriage. The last Lily saw of them was Daniel pulling him back.

The theatre was out of sight now, however much she craned her neck around the hood of the carriage. Lily swallowed, staring down at the darned gloves Georgie had insisted she put on. They were beautifully mended, but they were more darn than glove. ‘Aunt, how old is our cousin?’ she asked, wanting to distract herself.

Aunt Clara frowned at her, and glanced meaningfully at the coachman. But then she seemed to decide that it was an innocent enough question.

‘Louis is nine,’ she answered. ‘It will be pleasant for him to have companions close to his own age. Well-behaved companions,’ she added, fixing Lily with a diamond stare.

Lily nodded, very slightly. She supposed that Louis didn’t do magic either – or no more than Aunt Clara. How on earth did he stop himself? Of course their aunt wouldn’t want her darling corrupted by his criminal cousins. ‘What does –’ she stopped, realising that she had no idea what their uncle was called. ‘Your husband, Aunt Clara. What does he do?’

‘Sir Oliver is a gentleman of leisure,’ her aunt replied coldly. ‘He has estates in the north. He comes of a very old family. Very respectable.’

Obviously not a magician then, Lily translated. So their cousin had only half magician blood. But still. Even the littlest magic usually travelled down the family line. Some magicians were stronger than others, of course. Lily had a much harder time controlling her magic than Georgie did, because Georgie simply didn’t like the magic very much. She had been forced into using it in strange and unpleasant ways by their mother, and she’d had enough. Besides, if she let her magic spill out, the unknown spells Mama had planted inside her stirred, and odd, dangerous things began to happen. It was safer to pretend the magic wasn’t there at all. It would be torture for Lily, but Georgie seemed to be able to stuff it away inside her and ignore it quite happily. Perhaps Louis was the same.

The coachman drew up in front of a grey stone house, with scrubbed-white steps leading up to the blackest, shiniest front door Lily had ever seen. It was not a friendly-looking house, and even in a street of smart stone houses, it gleamed a little more than the others. It was almost the stone version of Aunt Clara’s spell, a monument to manners and good taste. As a footman hurried down the steps to assist them from the carriage, Lily felt as if an invisible thread had attached itself to her scalp, dragging her to stand up straight.

‘I suppose it’s hardly worth sending you to your rooms to change for lunch,’ Aunt Clara sighed, twitching off her gloves. ‘You’re unlikely to have anything more suitable to change into. Very well. William, tell Cook we will have lunch now.’

The footman glided away, and Lily felt almost grateful for the invisible thread. Part of her wanted to huddle away quietly somewhere, but she set her shoulders back further, and looked around the entrance hall, trying to seem unimpressed.

It wasn’t as big as Merrythought, of course, but it was
richer
. The footman had been crusted with gold braid, and there was even more of it on the dark velvet curtains. Daniel would have loved them for the theatre, Lily thought, smiling unhappily. Nothing was faded, or dusty. Even the ancient-looking portraits shone.

‘You brought them.’ The boy from the theatre was walking down the curved staircase, and Lily watched him curiously. The only other boy she knew well was the mute servant-boy at Merrythought, Peter. He had spiky brownish hair, and a mostly brownish face, tanned from working outdoors. Their cousin looked rather like him. A younger, well-fed, perfectly-groomed version, the brown hair neatly trimmed to sit above his snow-white shirt collar. His eyes were a hard blue, like Aunt Clara’s – or like her glamour, anyway.

‘These are your cousins.’ Aunt Clara nodded, her voice slightly brittle.

She hates doing this
, Lily realised.
Bringing us into her house, and endangering him. But she thinks we’re more dangerous at the theatre. She can’t risk us dishonouring her family all over again, if we’re recognised
. Lily shivered as the choking magic of the house settled on her shoulders.
We mustn’t stay here long. She may not be making spells on purpose any more, but her magic’s all through this house already. It’s going to squash us into perfect little ladies
.

Louis bowed politely, but he didn’t smile, and Henrietta squirmed in Lily’s arms. Lily could tell she didn’t like him. She sighed inwardly. Henrietta was not a tactful dog. She would have to do her best to keep her and Louis away from each other.

They followed Aunt Clara to a red-painted dining room that made Lily think of raw meat. She wasn’t hungry in the slightest, and she could feel Louis staring at her sideways.

A tall, thin man strode into the room, and stopped as soon as he saw Lily and Georgie. He peered at them through an eyeglass attached to his waistcoat, and Lily heard Louis snigger. ‘I see you found our little – ah – relatives,’ he said quietly.

‘There’s no doubt.’ Aunt Clara sat down at the table, waving Lily and Georgie into seats on the other side. Henrietta hid herself under the snowy tablecloth, glaring at Lily in a way that suggested she expected to be fed too.

‘No, I see the resemblance. Dreadful clothes. We will have to engage a governess, I suppose.’ He tucked the eyeglass away, and nodded once at Lily and Georgie, and then proceeded to ignore them for the rest of the meal.

Georgie was bowed over her plate, toying miserably with a portion of salmon. Lily could see how upset she was. She had made their dresses, with help from Maria.

Lily was more worried about the idea of a governess. She had never had one, of course, but she had a vague idea that governessing involved learning to speak Talish, and the art of conversation, and deportment – which was just another word for manners. None of it sounded in the slightest bit interesting. But the worst part was that if they were sent back to the schoolroom, they would be children again. After weeks of being treated as valued members of the theatre company, they were already being dismissed as unimportant little girls. Still, a governess would take time to engage, surely. Hopefully they would be gone before she arrived.

‘Do you go to school?’ Lily asked Louis, who was sitting across the table from her.

Aunt Clara and her husband – it was impossible to think of him as Uncle Oliver, although she supposed he was – were discussing some issue with the servants, and Lily spoke in a low voice, not wanting to draw their attention. She had a feeling that her aunt didn’t really want them to talk to Louis – or not without her listening, at least.

Louis gave her a fishlike look, as though he didn’t expect girls to speak.

‘I asked if you went to school,’ Lily repeated, smiling sweetly at him. Stupid boy. Did he think if he ignored her she’d just go away?

He stared back at her with dislike. ‘Of course I do. It’s the holidays now. But you could hardly go there. It’s a boarding school, and only for boys.’

Lily lifted her head a little, so as to glare down her nose at him. She supposed they had just arrived in his house with very little warning, but he had no need to be so rude.

It was only for a little while, she told herself. Until they could find out where their father’s prison was. Lily had a sudden dismal thought:
And then what will we do?
The dull red of the walls seemed to be pressing in on her, squashing all their hopeful plans. Finding him was only the beginning. He was hardly likely to be able to mend Georgie from within a prison. They were going to have to get him out. Stealing someone from a secret magicians’ jail sounded much more difficult here than it had back at the theatre.

Lily pushed her salmon around her plate. It was an odd colour, like the trapeze artists’ flesh-coloured tights. She hid the rest of it under her cutlery, struck by a sudden wave of homesickness. They should have stayed.

A cold insistent nose pressed against her leg, and a little of the gloom lifted. Lily fumbled the bread roll off her side plate into her lap, and fed it to Henrietta, who sniffed disapprovingly. She’d been spoiled by the corners of meat pies she begged from Sam and the stagehands, and a mere roll wasn’t what she was used to.

The lunch seemed to go on for ever, with Georgie sagging miserably beside her, and Louis sulking across the table. But eventually Aunt Clara rose, and beckoned the girls to follow her upstairs.

The house was dark, with heavy gilded wallpapers, and strangely quiet. Lily was sure that there were a great many servants, and here and there she thought she heard a footstep, but clearly they had been trained to keep out of their mistress’s way.

‘I have asked the housekeeper to prepare a room for you to share,’ Aunt Clara told them as she trailed her mass of skirts over the polished wooden floors. ‘As you were accustomed to share at—’ Words seemed to fail her at the horror of it. ‘Where you were before…’

‘Thank you,’ Lily murmured, admiring the room as their aunt opened the door. It was probably four times the size of their room at the theatre, and even their old bedrooms back at Merrythought would have fitted into it easily. She had wondered if they would be stuffed into some back corridor, being unfortunate relations, but perhaps she had been unfair to Aunt Clara.

‘I will leave you to settle in. I must go and draft an advertisement for a governess. Sir Oliver is quite right. We can hardly bring you out into society without a little polish.’

‘Bring us out into society?’ Lily muttered as she closed the door. ‘I don’t want to be brought out! Like those stupid girls who came to see the show, all covered in lace and feathers every night? I’d rather go back to Mama.’

Georgie gasped, and Lily hunched her shoulders angrily. ‘All right, so I wouldn’t. But this house is horrible. It’s so
cushiony
. I feel like I can hardly breathe.’