Lily and the Prisoner of Magic (3 page)

Elizabeth and Georgie settled down by the princess, admiring the delicacy of the dress, and the others sat in groups, stretching out their fingers and trying to recapture that strange silver glow.

‘That was lovely,’ Lottie told Lily, yawning hugely, as they leaned against the dragon’s warm scales. ‘Can we do it again?’ She was almost asleep.

‘Later,’ Lily promised. ‘We ought to rest now – we have to fly again tonight.’ But Lottie was asleep already.

It was half-dark by the time Lily woke, her arms prickly and aching from holding Lottie. Georgie was leaning against her, and Henrietta was curled up on her feet. Lily had a sudden, panicked moment, sure that she had lost someone, but still too wrapped up in her uncomfortable daytime sleep to work out who.

Then she saw that Peter was sitting up, his legs stretched out in front of him, against the dragon’s neck. He still looked dazed but his eyes were open, wide open, and he was gazing at her, as though at last he had remembered who she was.

She smiled at him, hopefully, and he smiled slowly back, as though he was having to try hard to remember how to do it.

Lottie woke up, frowning, and patted Lily’s hand. It was only a gentle little movement, but it was insistent, and as Lily turned back to look at the small girl, she realised that Lottie thought of her as the person in charge. The person who was going to make everything right.

‘I’m hungry,’ she told Lily, her voice wavering a little.

Lily nodded. ‘I know. I am too, Lottie. But we don’t have anything. It’s hard to make food with magic – magic and nothing else, I mean. You need ingredients to start with.’ She looked over at the dragon, who was stirring slowly, his wings rustling as he woke. ‘We’re going to fly to London,’ she explained to Lottie. ‘There’ll be food at the theatre – or, at least, there’s lots of places we can go and get some.’

Lottie wrinkled her nose, and seemed to be thinking about complaining. But even though she was only six, she could see quite well that there wasn’t any food to whinge for.

The dragon yawned, and almost everybody huddling around him in the wood flinched. His teeth were very large and shiny when one had a close-up view of them like that. He closed his jaws with a satisfied snap, and gazed down at Lily. ‘Shall we fly on?’

Lily nodded, and looked around for the other dragons, blinking as she tried to see them stretched out among the trees.

‘They’ve gone,’ the silver dragon told her with a smoky sigh.

Lily swallowed, imagining the playful troupe of dragons loose in the countryside. ‘Where?’

He shook his wings a little, his eyes glittering in the dusk. ‘I don’t know where they’ll go. But they will be careful. I explained. They found it very hard to understand that magic is no longer welcome, but they will stay hidden.’

‘They won’t hunt people, will they?’ Lily whispered to him, rather anxiously.

The dragon rustled his wings again, and answered in a low, murmuring growl. ‘I hope not. But then, they are wild…’ He nudged her very delicately with the side of his huge face. The scales were surprisingly silky. ‘They might eat people. But only people they don’t like.’

Lily wasn’t entirely sure if he was serious. Did dragons tease? She was sure she’d read about them loving riddles, but that was all.

‘You need to take off the spell,’ he murmured to her, and she nodded. She’d almost forgotten. The little grove would have been abandoned for ever.

‘I think the red-haired one needs to do it,’ Henrietta said, nodding towards Elizabeth, who was smoothing the skirts of her new dress with a pleased expression. She looked up anxiously as she heard Henrietta.

‘How do I?’ Then her face fell a little. ‘Do you think I’ll have to give the dress back?’ she asked sadly.

Lily nibbled her bottom lip. ‘No… Why don’t you try pulling out a hair? The spell made your hair grow, and you’ve still got flowers in it.’

Wincing a little, Elizabeth did as she was told, plucking one long, golden-red hair that twisted around her fingers as though it was still alive. ‘Now what should I do?’ she asked, gazing at it, and Lily thought furiously. She’d hoped that just pulling out the hair would do something to the spell, at least.

The dragon spat out a little flicker of flame, and the children gathered in between his forelegs scattered with yelps.

‘Apologies,’ he murmured. ‘I forgot myself… Hold it here, young lady in the dress.’

Elizabeth held the hair out to him at arm’s length, worriedly eyeing his fiery mouth. The hair curled and coiled, and the dragon shot out one tiny flame that frizzled it to a twisted rope of ash which collapsed and blew away on the wind.

All at once the wood seemed lighter, the faint shadowy hedge around the trees melted away, and Lily could hear voices in the distance.

‘We should go. It’s dark enough, isn’t it, if we keep high?’

The dragon nodded, and the children began to climb on again, settling themselves along the ridges of his spine. With his wings pressed close to his sides, he wormed his way between the trees to the open field beyond.

Lily felt Princess Jane’s thin arms tightening around her waist as the wings stretched and beat, and they were up, in a rush of cold air and sharp-smelling magic.

‘
L
ook at the lights…’ Lily murmured, as they circled slowly above the city. ‘Don’t forget to hold on,’ she added sharply, listening to the gasps and sighs of admiration from behind her. All the children were leaning over the dragon’s sides, peering down at the sparkling ribbons of light that tracked the streets of London.

‘This city is a great deal larger than it used to be,’ the dragon said thoughtfully. ‘I suppose it’s only to be expected.’ But he sounded sad again, as though he was realising how much time he’d lost.

Lily ran a comforting hand over the back of his head – where his ears would be, except that she wasn’t sure which of the scaly fronds actually were his ears. But he seemed pleased. She could feel his purring growl beneath her.

‘Lily, how do we find the theatre from up here?’ Georgie asked. Lily could hear that she was frowning.

‘We can’t. We’ll have to go lower, so we can see the streets properly. It’s close to the river, we know that…’ But the river looked awfully long, even from up here. It wound through the city like a glistening snake.

‘What if someone sees us?’ one of the boys called, and Lily sighed.

‘We haven’t a choice. And I don’t think anyone who saw us would believe what they were seeing anyway,’ she added. ‘No one thinks dragons exist any more, or that they ever did. Everyone knows they’re only a story. If you saw a story flying over your house, you’d probably just go and hide your head under your pillow. I hope.’

The dragon chuckled. ‘I think it would be a good thing if we were seen, Lily. We need to bring the magic back. What better way to start?’

Lily shivered. ‘Not yet. We aren’t ready.’

The dragon was silent for a moment. There wasn’t even the slap of his wings against the wind, now that he was gliding down towards the glittering streets. ‘Will you ever be ready?’ he asked her at last.

Lily stared at the lights blurring and flashing beneath them and sighed. ‘Maybe not. That’s what you mean, isn’t it? That we couldn’t be ready for something like this. So we shouldn’t worry if we aren’t?’

‘Indeed. I do not suggest that we are reckless. But you should be daring.’

‘I don’t feel daring,’ Lily whispered, the words whipping away in the wind. ‘I wish we could just stop, and have a rest for a while.’ That was why she wanted so much to go back to the theatre, she realised. For a few short weeks, she and Georgie and Henrietta had lived there as though they might have stayed for ever. As though they weren’t running away from their mother and her strange plots. And as though all they knew of magic were the illusions they assisted with on stage.

Then the dragon shivered underneath her with one of those strange purring growls, and Henrietta darted her head down to lick Lily’s arm, and Lily shook herself. She was flying over London on the back of a dragon. Until a few weeks before, she’d thought that her family’s magical blood had missed her out, and she’d never imagined anything as amazing as this.

She wondered how many magicians there were, hidden away around the country, burying their magic deep inside themselves. They’d never know what it was like to fly on a dragon, or even join hands and surround themselves with magic as she and the others had done, back in the wood.

‘Perhaps just a little bit daring,’ she said to the dragon. ‘We don’t want the Queen’s Men searching for us.’

He nodded. ‘I think those that have magic inside them may be looking, Lily. I can feel them, wishing, as I fly…’

‘There must be hundreds.’ Lily caught her breath excitedly as he swooped down lower, gliding past the attic windows of the tall houses, and arcing out over the river. She could hear Georgie and Lottie behind her, Lottie squealing delightedly as they skimmed across the water, and Georgie telling her not to wriggle so much.

‘The theatre isn’t far from that bridge, Lily!’ Georgie yelled. ‘We walked across it once, remember? Tell him to turn in line with the bridge, and fly south. I think, anyway…’

‘I heard her,’ the dragon told Lily, banking to the right and dipping over the ornate metal bridge. He must have looked like some strange cloud, or a wisp of mist off the river. Only a pair of horses drawing a delivery van spooked at the sight of him, rearing and twisting against the shafts of the wagon. Lily could hear their driver cursing.

‘So horses don’t like dragons, then?’ she asked him, and he snorted.

‘Nothing on four legs likes us, dear one. They know we’d happily eat them.’ He chuckled. ‘Your little dog pretends that she understands no such thing, but she’s not very convincing. Ah, is this it? All lit up? I can hear music.’

‘Yes!’ Lily shrieked delightedly, ignoring the furious muttering from Henrietta. ‘Do you think you could land in that yard at the back? Is it big enough?’

The dragon circled lower, and eyed the yard thoughtfully. ‘If I land there, Lily, it will be difficult for me to take off again. I could do it, but it would be slow; I’d have to claw my way up. Are you sure we’re safe here?’

Lily gulped, and turned back to Georgie, who nodded. ‘It’s the safest place there is.’ She had her fingers crossed behind Lottie’s back, Lily could tell.

‘Not that that means much,’ Henrietta muttered crossly.

‘Land,’ Lily told him. ‘If – if something goes wrong –’ she didn’t want to think what – ‘then we’ll make some sort of spell. We won’t let anyone hurt you.’

He snorted kindly. ‘I am more worried that someone will injure
you
fragile little things. Dragons are hard to hurt.’

The little yard at the back of the theatre led onto the scene dock, where the huge canvas flats were painted. A gate led out of the yard into the rabbit warren of alleys that crisscrossed the grander streets around the theatre.

The dragon settled into a tighter spiral, corkscrewing down towards the cobbles, and eventually slipped into the tiny yard with a rustle of enormous wings. There was very little space left.

‘And now we wait?’ he asked. ‘I can hear music still. Is there a play, now?’ His eyes were glinting eagerly, and Lily rubbed soothing fingers across his scales.

‘A show, yes, it must be nearly the end.’

‘That’s Daniel’s music,’ Georgie said quietly, smiling a little. ‘I can tell. It’s the floating girl trick. He’s found someone to replace us, Lily.’

‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it…’ Lily tried to sound as though she didn’t mind – they’d left the theatre, after all. It must have been about ten days ago, she thought, trying to count back in her head. ‘We told him to. We went off with Aunt Clara, remember. To see if she could tell us where Father was.’

Their mother’s sister had been in the audience, and she had searched the girls out the next day. Lady Clara Fishe had hidden her magic so well, and for so long, that even she didn’t realise she was still using glamours to keep up appearances as a society lady. She had been horrified that Lily and Georgie might let the family’s dirty little secret out, and put her son, the girls’ cousin Louis, in danger. When they’d been denounced as magicians, she had hurriedly washed her hands of them, and seen them sent away to Fell Hall.

‘Still… I’d thought we might be able to go back into the act,’ Georgie sighed.

Lily frowned at her. ‘The Queen’s Men, Georgie, remember? We’ve already been seized once, and now we’ve escaped! We’re in hiding, we can’t go prancing about on stage!’

‘I suppose so…’

‘Dim-witted,’ Henrietta pronounced with relish, in a carrying whisper. ‘Feather-brained as they come.’

Lily shook her head and murmured back, ‘She’s only wishing, Henrietta. I wish we could, too.’

A storm of applause swelled out from the theatre, and Lottie and several of the smaller children woke up in fright, clutching at the others.

‘Just a few more minutes,’ Lily promised. ‘We need to let the audience leave. And then we’ll tell them that we’re here.’

‘And we can have supper,’ Lottie remembered, sleepily pleased.

Lily nodded. The Queen’s Theatre had a delicate little gold-painted supper room, where ices were sold, but it was not used to catering for forty hungry children. Still, that was hardly worth worrying about. She had to explain away a dragon first. She slipped down from the dragon’s neck, holding up her arms to Henrietta. The little pug dog had been the petted darling of the theatre crew. Now she darted happily back through the peeling double doors, sniffing enthusiastically at the strange, dusty theatre smell, and searching for the stagehands who had fussed over her with scraps.