Lily and the Shining Dragons Read online

  Lily wriggled gingerly into the box, and allowed Daniel to drape the chains over her. ‘Of course, for the show, we’ll make a fuss with padlocks, that sort of thing,’ he explained. ‘And then I fold the boxes down over you – and now you see, your feet are hidden, yes? But the audience can still see your face. I think it would be good if you looked just a little nervous now.’

  Henrietta snickered, and Lily wriggled uncomfortably. The box fitted tightly around her neck, and it felt very strange having just her head sticking out at the end.

  ‘Not quite that nervous, please.’ Daniel frowned at her. ‘Now, do you see the tiny gap between the two boxes?’

  ‘No!’ Lily snapped. ‘I can’t see anything down here.’

  ‘Ah, no, of course not. Well, there is one, and that’s where the saw goes, you see.’

  ‘But then where does Lily go?’ Georgie asked worriedly. ‘I can see just a scrap of her dress through the gap – you can’t saw through there!’

  ‘She slips her feet out of the chains – because that hasp that fitted over them looks tight, but actually there’s plenty of room, Lily, especially if you lift your ankles a little bit. You pull your feet out, and curl up in this end of the box. It’s really very simple. The way the box is made, it looks shallower than it really is, that’s all. And the audience knows that you’re chained down, so they’ll be convinced that I’ve cut you in half! Isn’t it wonderful?’

  ‘I suppose so…’ Lily admitted. She had a feeling the illusion would look better when viewed standing up, rather than from inside.

  ‘What about the toes?’ Henrietta demanded, getting up, and standing on her hind legs to sniff at the gap between the boxes.

  ‘Ah. Yes. Lily, try to slip your feet out, and curl up, the way I described.’

  Lily wriggled her ankles experimentally, and found that it was just as Daniel said, there was plenty of room. She drew her knees up to her chest, hugging her feet in as tightly as she could.

  ‘You’ve done it?’ Daniel asked hopefully, and Lily nodded. She was squashed so closely into the first box that she could hardly breathe, let alone talk.

  ‘Good! Now, you see, in the performance Georgie and I will work the saw back and forth – with a suitable effort, you know, as though we were really cutting through you – and then these steel plates slot in, here and here. And again, I’ll force them down, as though there’s resistance—’

  ‘Ugh…’ Lily muttered. Daniel’s eyes were shining with excitement; it was rather sickening.

  ‘So then the box hinges apart, like so!’ Daniel flipped the catches, and dramatically swung the table so it split in two. It was rather an anticlimax to see Lily’s black button boots, squashed up into her petticoats – Sam even averted his eyes. ‘Well, of course the audience will only see the steel plates. You fit perfectly, Lily. But you mustn’t stick your feet out any further…’

  ‘But how will I know if they’re far enough in?’ Lily asked him, wriggling anxiously. ‘And more to the point, how will you know?’

  ‘I won’t, that’s the slight drawback with this apparatus. But it will be fine! You’ve got lots of room. Really!’

  ‘Are you worrying about the new trick?’ Henrietta asked. She was lying on the bed next to Lily, on her back, with her little black paws waving in the air. It was an undignified position, which she never would have taken up in company.

  Lily stared down at her fondly. It was mid-afternoon, and she’d been planning to sleep, as the variety show ran on late, and the second part of their act was the finale. But she’d given after up after a few minutes’ irritable wriggling, and now had her chin on her hands. She was vaguely reading one of the illustrated papers that someone had left lying in the theatre. ‘No. Well, maybe a little. I don’t like the sound of those steel plates. And I wish Daniel didn’t sound so gory about it all.’

  Henrietta leaned sideways, and licked one of Lily’s hands. ‘Mmm. He was enjoying all that talk of saws. Silly little boy.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Lily sighed. ‘But that wasn’t actually what I was worrying about. I was thinking about Father.’

  ‘Hmf.’ Henrietta twisted athletically, and turned herself the right way up, staring at Lily with round, intelligent eyes. ‘Where to find him?’

  Lily nodded. ‘We haven’t a clue, have we? Not even the slightest. It’s all very well telling Daniel we’re leaving next week, but where shall we go?’

  ‘Mmmm.’ Henrietta laid her chin on her paws, staring thoughtfully at the grubby brick of the wall. The girls slept at the theatre, as part of their arrangement with Daniel, and the room was not luxurious. But it was safe, and that was all that mattered. Or it had been safe…

  ‘Where is your sister?’ Henrietta demanded, looking up suddenly.

  ‘Guess!’

  ‘In that tatty seamstresses’ parlour, again?’ Henrietta demanded irritably.

  ‘She likes it.’ Lily shrugged, her voice tinged with a little disbelief. Neither of the girls had ever been taught to sew – it wasn’t something that Mama had cared about in the slightest – but Georgie had discovered something she was good at, at last. Maria, the wardrobe mistress, had taken her on as a sort of unofficial apprentice.

  ‘She should be working on her magic. Or at least helping you to plan what we do next. If she wants to break your mother’s hold over her, she needs to put some effort in!’

  Lily nodded. ‘I know. But I think she’s even more frightened of leaving the theatre than I am. You know she hardly ever goes out. And the last time she did, Marten attacked her.’

  ‘If your sister is too afraid to use her magic, she’s not going to be much help finding your father’s prison, either.’ Henrietta grunted with irritation. ‘It’s up to us. As usual.’

  ‘I wonder if we could do something like Marten’s hunting?’ Lily mused. ‘Do you think you could sniff out the prison? It would be a whole clutch of magicians, that might make it easier.’

  Henrietta’s pug wrinkles deepened. ‘Well, I could if they were doing magic, but they aren’t, are they? That’s the point. Your father said in that letter we found that they were suppressing his magic, somehow.’

  Lily sighed, and rolled on to her back, her arm around Henrietta, staring up at the dirty ceiling. The damp patches seemed to move and grow darker through her tired eyes, so that the dark castle-shaped blotch sprouted turrets, and unpleasant spikes here and there. It seemed very suitable, and Lily shivered.

  ‘I suppose you can hardly follow a scent that’s not even happening. It seemed such a good idea, just for a minute. Oh!’ She sat up crossly, shaking the grey shapes out of her eyes. ‘Someone must know where it is!’

  ‘But we can’t ask, can we?’ Henrietta growled. ‘Not without looking extremely suspicious. We need to find ourselves another magician. Someone who knows more about the world than we do. And doesn’t mind risking being imprisoned, just for talking to us about it.’ Then she growled again, staring at the door, and curled herself into a neat, doglike shape. Someone was coming.

  Georgie flung the door open, and stood in the doorway. She looked happy, Lily thought, almost resentfully. It was clear she’d spent an enjoyable afternoon sewing with Maria, while Lily and Henrietta worried.

  ‘Come on. It’s time to dress.’

  ‘Already?’ Lily said wearily. Would-be rescuers had better keep earlier hours than theatre performers, she decided. Once they were no longer part of the act, she was going to sleep for a whole day. That would be before they were arrested, the gloomier side of her added. The Queen’s Men were suspicious of Daniel and the girls already, even without Lily and Georgie sniffing around for magical prisons.

  ‘I’ll have to make you a new costume for the divided box trick,’ Georgie said, looking Lily up and down critically in their cupboard-sized dressing room. ‘Perhaps something eastern, with those floaty pantaloons. Otherwise it might be a bit undignified. I’ll ask Maria.’

  ‘Can’t I just wear tights, like the ballet dancers?’ Lily asked. />
  ‘No. Tights aren’t proper.’ Georgie shook her head sternly.

  ‘I don’t think being onstage at all is proper, Georgie.’ Lily sniggered. ‘Besides when have we ever cared about being proper? Our father’s a criminal, you know, officially anyway.’ She was silent a minute. ‘And Mama definitely is one. Even if we’re the only people who know.’

  ‘All the more reason to keep up appearances,’ Georgie muttered. ‘We’re supposed to be exiled princesses from the far north, remember. Princesses don’t show their legs. If the Queen’s Men come back, Lily, we have to look like…’ Georgie paused. ‘Like nice girls. Not the sort of people who ought to be arrested. Here. Let me fasten you up.’

  Lily sighed. She had only just got used to the fussiness of her blue costume, with its ribbons and flounces, and the complicated hook-and-eye fastening that was a nightmare to do up in a hurry. She didn’t want another one. Still, it was pleasant to let Georgie hover over her, and prink her into shape. She didn’t have to think, she could just sit, and be tweaked at.

  ‘Ow!’ Lily protested, as her sister raked a comb through her curls, and tried to pin them up. ‘You know the pins won’t stay in, why try?’

  Georgie, whose own hair was now an intricate arrangement of swirls and sparkling paste jewels, shook her head. ‘Oh, just shove the tiara on it then! Really, Lily, it’s as if you’re doing it on purpose.’ She caught Lily’s chin suddenly, and pulled her face round, so she could stare into her sister’s eyes. ‘Tell me you’re not doing a spell to repel hairpins!’

  Lily wriggled crossly. ‘I don’t like having my hair up! It’s enough to have the tiara, isn’t it? If you put it up the pins jab into me, and then they fall out in the middle of the act. It’s distracting.’ She looked up at Georgie, a little shamefaced. ‘I didn’t start it on purpose. But then…’

  Georgie shook her head. ‘You have so much magic, Lily. It scares me that you can use it for such little things.’ She shivered. ‘Be careful. If you keep a spell like that going all the time, who’s to say you won’t forget, and let someone see?’

  ‘I won’t. I promise.’ She hugged Georgie tightly. ‘I truly promise. Look, I’ve stopped it.’ Lily ran a hand over her hair, as though she was wiping away a cobweb caught there. ‘You can pin it up now. I’ll make it stick.’

  ‘But that’s just as bad!’ Georgie laughed, a little bitterly. ‘I’m not really jealous, Lily. I know I could do it too, if I wasn’t worrying about what might wake up inside me. But you just seem to use spells so easily. As if it’s nothing.’ She sat down on one of the rickety old chairs next to Lily, and stared at her little sister’s messy, tangled curls. ‘Oh, go on. There’s the pins. You do it.’ She shoved a box of pins and assorted shiny things along the table to Lily, and glared at her, her eyes wet.

  ‘All right,’ Lily whispered, miserably. ‘You’d better watch the door.’ Her sister was always holed up in the wardrobe, cocooned in sparkling fabrics. Safe. Lily had thought she was happy too. But she was wrong.

  Looking apologetically up at Georgie, she poked her fingers into her curls, and twirled. Henrietta leaped on to her lap. She loved magic. Spells made her tail curl tighter, and now she watched bright-eyed as Lily’s hair snaked itself into glossy brown locks, winding around themselves in delicate pleats and plaits. A shower of dull gold hairpins flew out of the box, and stabbed into the gleaming mass.

  ‘Which jewels?’ Lily asked humbly.

  Georgie sighed. ‘Those big diamondy ones. The bigger the better, for the stage, though they’re vulgar as anything.’

  Lily nodded, and the diamond clips appeared in her hair, sparkling merrily.

  Georgie eyed her. ‘Oh well. If you must risk us all being arrested, I suppose you might as well do it with nice hair.’ Then she stalked to the dressing-room door. ‘Come on then!’ she snapped, but she was smiling, and Lily raced after her.

  ‘Someone’s watching you two.’

  Lily looked up at Sam, panting a little. He’d caught her as she hurried offstage. They’d had three curtain calls, and she’d had to race back to the front of the stage and bow again and again before they could go, and let the trick cyclist troupe come on. The illusionist act seemed to be more popular every night.

  ‘They’re supposed to watch us, Sam. Everyone’s supposed to be watching!’

  ‘You know what I mean, missy. Don’t be smart.’

  Henrietta growled, very quietly, but she was eyeing Lily, not Sam. Lily stopped smiling, and shook her head. ‘I won’t. What do you mean? Who’s watching?’

  ‘A lady. Tall, looks like to me. Thin. Very thin, but not like it’s natural. She’s in one of the boxes, first tier, left of the stage.’ He frowned. ‘She’s got a look of your sister, though I can’t quite say how. That light hair, maybe.’

  Lily went pale. ‘Mama?’ she faltered. But then Henrietta nipped her ankle crossly. ‘Oh, no, not if she’s thin. All right, I know it was stupid, Henrietta! But there’s no one else…’ She stopped. Actually, of course, she didn’t know that. She and Georgie had always supposed they had no relatives, because Mama had never mentioned them.

  ‘Want me to point her out?’ Sam shuffled her towards the edge of the curtain.

  Lily peered around it, careful not to sway the heavy velvet. The auditorium was packed, not a little crimson chair empty.

  ‘There, see? With a boy next to her.’ Sam nudged Lily, showing her a tall, regal-looking woman in one of the nearest boxes.

  She had a good view there, Lily thought, the blood seeming to flow through her heart slower all of a sudden. A very good view. The gold-haired woman couldn’t know that Lily was on the other side of the curtain. Lily would swear that she was hidden. But the woman was staring right at her.

  Straight into Lily’s eyes.

  Lily ducked back into the wings, with Henrietta coiling anxiously around her ankles, and whimpering.

  ‘Who is she?’ Sam demanded. ‘You look as though you’re about to faint, Lily. What’s happening? Is that your ma?’

  Lily shook her head. ‘I don’t know who she is. But you’re right, she does look like Georgie. A little. She was looking at me, Sam. She knows who I am.’ She leaned against the wall, biting her lip. ‘We have to go onstage again, at the end of the show. Our finale act. She’ll be watching us again.’

  ‘And I’ll be watching her. I promise you. If I see anything that looks…nasty, I’ll haul you offstage. All of you. Even if it means breaking the illusion. I won’t let anyone hurt you.’

  ‘You can’t do that!’ Lily sounded shocked. She and Georgie and Henrietta had only been theatre performers for a few weeks, but they had absorbed how important it was to keep the audience happy. The show must always go on.

  ‘Watch me,’ Sam muttered, leaning out to try and catch another glimpse of the skinny, gold-haired woman.

  Lily smiled at him. She knew that she and Georgie would have to go onstage, and wave and smile and do everything the way they usually did it. And she knew that although Sam would do anything he could to help, if the woman in the stage-left box wanted to hurt Lily or Georgie somehow, he would be worse than useless. He would probably get himself hurt too, which was another thing for Lily to worry about.

  Whoever she was, she’d used magic. Lily was sure. She’d known that Lily was behind the curtain peering out. Only magic could have told her that, and all magic was forbidden, by the Queen’s Decree. The gold-haired woman was another magician in hiding. She had to be.

  So even if Lily hadn’t hated the idea of spoiling the show, she had to go back onstage. She had to show the gold-haired woman that she wasn’t afraid, that she knew who had come to watch them. Lily would stare back, eye to eye. That way, the woman would want to meet them, surely? Then they would have what they needed. Another magician. Someone who might know where their father’s prison was.

  ‘Is she still there?’ Lily hissed to Sam, as they waited in the wings to run on for the finale.

  He nodded grimly, and Lily smiled.
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br />   ‘What are you two planning?’ Daniel asked, looking at them suspiciously, and Georgie turned worried eyes on Lily.

  ‘There’s a magician in the left-hand box.’ Lily lowered her voice and nodded towards it. ‘A woman. Georgie, don’t go into your dying duck act! We need a magician, don’t you see? She might know where Father is. Just try and look…tempting.’

  ‘Tempting!’ Georgie hissed. ‘I’m not a supper dish, Lily!’

  ‘Not yet.’ Sam exchanged a determined look with Daniel. ‘I’ll be watching them, don’t you worry.’

  ‘You can’t.’ Daniel shook his head. ‘If she’s a magician, we have to let Lily and Georgie protect everyone else. Lily, why didn’t you say? We could have cleared the theatre. A fire. A typhus scare. Anything!’

  ‘I didn’t tell you because I knew that’s what you would say!’ Lily snapped. ‘Especially after Marten.

  I don’t want to get away from her, I need to ask her things.’ She shook out her glittery skirts, and assumed her stage smile, the one with lots of teeth. It did not go well with the determined scowl. ‘So come on. Tempting, remember?’

  And the curtains drew back.

  ‘Nothing,’ Lily snarled bitterly. ‘Nothing, nothing, nothing! Not a word, or a note, or a message at the stage door. Nothing!’

  Georgie nodded, and Lily could tell that she was trying not to look too relieved. They had got through the finale without too many mistakes – none, hopefully, that anyone but themselves had seen. Georgie’s Northern Princess face had been more fixed than usual, perhaps, as she tried to stop staring at the stage-left box, but she had danced and twirled and been entranced just as usual. The new divided box act would have been a relief, Lily had thought, as she gathered up the artificial flowers that Daniel was strewing out of his sleeves. A welcome change, if only they were staying for it. The Devil’s Cabinet and the levitation trick were growing stale.

  She had been so sure. There was a magician come to see them. It was the next step – the clue they needed. Daniel would have to find another pair of assistants even sooner than they had hoped.