The Conspiracy of Magic

by Harriet Whitehorn

  I had almost forgotten about the Company, Cass thought. She had spent so long focusing on surviving and getting back to Minaris, and then on revenging Dacha, that all other thoughts of the wider world had been pushed from her head.

  “Would you like to come to the Farthest Lands?” Idaliz repeated when she didn’t answer. “Or why don’t you come with me as far as the Far Islands and meet up with Rip there?”

  Inevitably, Cass’s dream of being with Rip came back to her but she pushed it away. She didn’t feel like she deserved it any more now Dacha was dead.

  “I don’t know,” Cass replied. “I think I should just stay here and help Mrs Potts.”

  “And be bored after about a week?” Idaliz said. Then she took Cass’s hand. “You can’t keep punishing yourself, Cass. It wasn’t your fault. You have to let Dacha go.”

  “But I don’t know how to,” Cass replied simply.

  “Perhaps you should go back and see his grave?” Idaliz suggested.

  Cass nodded. “I’ve been thinking that.”

  “Shall I come with you?” Idaliz asked.

  “No, thank you. I’ll be fine on my own.”

  Later Cass went to the palace looking for Captain Toskil. She found him in his room.

  “I need to visit Balzen,” she said. “I have to return the parachute I used to its owner, and also…” Cass hesitated, finding it hard to speak of Dacha’s death, as it still felt so raw for her. “Also…” she repeated, “I would like to visit Dacha’s grave. So I wanted to ask if I could borrow a horse.”

  “Of course you can, Cass, but do you mind if I come with you?” the captain said. “I need to see where Dacha’s grave is so I can tell his family when they return from the Islands.”

  Cass had wanted to go alone but the mention of Dacha’s family made her think of them. Dacha had been her friend, but he was their son, his sister’s brother. Their loss was much greater than hers. “Of course,” she replied.

  They arranged to ride out at dawn the following day but later Cass received a brief message from the captain saying that he’d meet her in Balzen the day after. Cass went to the stables, where to her delight she was reunited with Daisy, who was very pleased to be back with Cass, and even more so when she found they were going on a long expedition.

  Spring had well and truly arrived on the Minarian Plains and the ground was covered in bright green grass, sprinkled with white melliflet flowers. The sun was in and out of clouds and although there was a brisk wind, it had lost its winter chill.

  In the late afternoon, Cass reached the woods where she’d hidden the parachute. It took her a little time to find it and by the time she had dragged it out from under the log, shaken the dirt off and folded it neatly up, it was nearly dark. So she decided to make camp by the nearby river. It was a pretty spot, with a view of the Razat Falls behind. Cass made a fire and ate some of the food that she’d brought, then boiled some river water for tea. She drank it and lay back on a blanket to watch the stars come out.

  “Over there – the mountain goat,” she heard Dacha’s voice say in her head, pointing out the stars to her as he had that night when they were canoeing. “Do you see those two particularly bright stars? Those are the top of its horns and then can you trace down its nose?”

  Cass yawned and shut her eyes, and something very strange happened. Afterwards, she would presume she had nodded off. It was the logical explanation but somehow it didn’t feel like a dream.

  Cass felt a hand on her arm, gently shaking her. She opened her eyes and found Dacha sitting next to her. He was dressed in his Queen’s Guard uniform and looked as he had when she had first met him – healthy and well fed.

  “What are you doing here?!” she spluttered, sitting up immediately.

  “I wanted to see you.” Dacha smiled at her.

  “But you’re…” She was about to say dead, but it sounded rude somehow.

  “I am,” he replied calmly. “But we both know that you can see ghosts. And besides, we never got a chance to say goodbye.”

  “I don’t want to say goodbye! I want you to stay with me. Can’t we go back and change things?”

  Dacha laughed. “You know we can’t. Come on, Cass, it’s time.”

  “I’m not ready,” she protested.

  “You have to be, Cass,” he said firmly.

  “No,” Cass insisted. She could feel tears beginning to pool in her eyes and then flood down her face. Dacha wiped them away with his hands.

  “Tears are important but not too many and not for too long,” he said. “I want you to remember that. Goodbye, Cass.” He squeezed her hands with his, and then he began to fade before her eyes.

  “No, don’t go!” she cried desperately, clutching at the air where he had been. But Dacha had vanished.

  Cass lay back on the blanket and cried and cried. Then when at last she was done, and her head was pounding and she was very thirsty, she walked down to the river to get a drink. The moon had risen and it was still and peaceful. And because it felt like the right thing to do, Cass said, “Goodbye,” out loud, into the night. She took the silence that followed as a kind of answer.

  Captain Toskil was waiting in Balzen with Tiger and Arden.

  “If I come with Dacha’s family it will inhibit them, so I thought I would say goodbye to him now,” Arden explained simply and Cass could see she was right. Their day of mourning would become about the queen’s presence and not about Dacha. But she was amused to see that Dorcas, when Arden introduced herself as just that, clearly had no idea who she was.

  Dorcas showed them the grave in the burial ground. She had picked a good spot under an ancient tree that was full of memorial kites, bobbing in the breeze. Arden and Tiger had made Dacha a beautiful kite of fine red silk embroidered with traditional Veraklian symbols.

  They took it in turns to fly it in the burial ground – it caught the wind perfectly, soaring and swooping up and down. And then Cass climbed up the tree with it, fastening it to a high branch, while the others prepared a picnic of ash cakes and a bottle of dark mourning wine, which they shared sitting by his grave.

  They took it in turns to remember Dacha, and as the day drew to a close they picked the creamy grief anemones that grew amongst the trees and covered the grave with them. After saying goodbye to Dorcas, they rode back to Minaris, each quiet with their own thoughts and memories.

  “I am so enjoying my little holiday,” Mrs Potts announced, taking a sip of bitter tea and Rimple’s. She and Cass were sitting in the sun in the pretty garden of the inn in Tarn where Mrs Potts was staying.

  After Dacha’s funeral, Idaliz and Cass had boarded a schooner named the Fish Bone bound for the Far Isles. They had stopped en route in Liversus where Cass had been reunited with Lion, Tig and Mrs Potts. Lion and Tig had sailed back to Minaris shortly afterwards, but Mrs Potts had unexpectedly decided to stay in the Islands. She had discovered, rather late in life, a passion for travel and had sailed on to Tarn with Cass and Idaliz. “I think I shall make my way to Sedoor next,” Mrs Potts continued. “And you’re off to the Far Isles to see your young man?”

  “Yes, although Rip’s not my young man,” Cass replied calmly. It was much too nice an afternoon to get annoyed with Mrs Potts.

  “More fool you then. He’s a lovely boy and has such beautiful manners. What’s more Lycus is sure to make him Protector of the Islands in a few years time.”

  “Perhaps,” Cass said, not wishing to get drawn into the conversation.

  “What are your plans after your holiday?” Mrs Potts asked. “Will you return to the queen and Minaris?”

  “I don’t think so,” Cass replied. “I think I may travel on to the Farthest Lands with my friend Idaliz,” she said tentatively, expecting an objection from Mrs Potts to this course of action.

  But to her surprise, the old lady merely nodded and said, “Well, dear, you must do as you wish. Now, let me pour you some more tea.”

  Cass left Mrs Potts an hour or so later. She walked throu
gh the streets of Tarn, enjoying the chaotic atmosphere and the sense of excitement that the city always had as the day faded into evening and the sky above her turned from blue to violet. It was full of clouds of swifty birds, circling around the city. It was so good to be back in the Islands, Cass decided. Although she still thought of Dacha much of the time, and had a sense of unfinished business with Nym, her brain was making way for other things and she could feel herself beginning to come to terms with what had happened.

  Cass was heading to the Square of Obfuscation where she had arranged to meet Idaliz for supper. There was a food stall there that her friend claimed served the finest crabfish fritters in the Mid Isles.

  But as she neared the square a young boy came bounding up to her. “Cassandra Malvino?” he asked.

  Oh no, Cass thought, not again, her stomach contracting, her eyes darting around looking for Nym.

  “Cassandra Malvino?” the boy repeated.

  Cass nodded, bracing herself for him to sing “Oh, I’m the Queen of Minaris…” But he didn’t. He just handed her an envelope and ran off.

  Cass opened it with some trepidation but inside was the Company’s distinctive calling card – it was black with a figure of eight on it – and on the other side was written, You are invited to a meeting of the Astrological Ladies at seven o’clock at Mele’s house, 15 Street of Lions.

  The “astrological ladies” was the secret name that the members used for themselves and Mele was the original founder of the Company of Eight. Cass had visited her house in Tarn the year before with Rip.

  That’s strange, Cass thought. I understood that, apart from Idaliz, the Company were all in the Far Isles. But she shrugged off any misgivings.

  It was only a little after six and Mele’s house was just a short walk from the Square of Obfuscation so Cass wandered into the square with the intention of dawdling there for a while, enjoying the delightful jumble of jugglers, fortune tellers, acrobats, snake charmers, traders and food sellers.

  She picked her way through, marvelling at the spectacle, and stopped to watch a couple of street acrobats. My time on the Circus Boat seems like another lifetime, Cass thought, without a twinge of regret. She walked on, waving away the fortune tellers, and then she was distracted by a snake charmer, playing his pipe, while the snake, a vicious black cobra from the Farthest Lands, rose up and up. While she was standing still, she was pounced on again by the street sellers.

  “Look at the beautiful earrings I have…”

  “Lady, will you look at the silks – the finest quality from the Farthest Lands…”

  “No, thank you. No, thank you,” Cass repeated politely.

  “Here, smell my scents, the most exquisite,” a man came up to her, boxes of glass bottles strapped to him, and waved a perfume under her nose. It smelt deliciously of orange blossom.

  “You like that?” he said. “This one is even better,” and he shoved another bottle under her nose. The sharp smell of etherine hit Cass like a blow, and before she could wrench her face away, she fainted.

  She came round to find herself lying on her back on stone flags in the centre of a courtyard of a house. Where am I? She sat up warily, looking around her, looking for Nym. She must have followed me from Minaris, Cass supposed, with a feeling of awful, weary fear.

  But the courtyard was empty and from the look of the buildings, the colour of the sky and the noise of the swifty birds, she was still in Tarn and only a short time had elapsed since she had been in the square.

  A noise behind her made Cass start and she spun round, scrambling to her feet. A masked figure, a woman dressed in dark clothes, appeared, carrying two swords. Without a word, she threw one at Cass. If Nym has hired an assassin to kill me why don’t they just get on with it and not make me fight? Cass thought with weary anger, as she caught the sword.

  The fight began. Whoever she is, she fights beautifully, Cass appreciated, as the woman engaged her in a parry and nearly knocked her sword out of her hand. Cass rallied and they began again, but this time Cass had a sense of the woman taking a step back, almost observing her. Is she playing with me, like a cat does with a mouse? Cass was distracted, leaving herself undefended in a move. The woman flipped her sword out of her hand and it clattered to the floor. Cass dived for it, but the woman’s sword was at her neck before she reached it.

  “That’s enough, Cass,” she said calmly and then withdrew her sword saying, “You can get up now.” Bewildered Cass got to her feet as the woman called out, “Your protégé fights well. You can come out now.”

  To Cass’s surprise, a doorway opened and Idaliz appeared. “But what…” she stammered.

  The woman took off her mask, put away her sword, removed her gloves and offered Cass her hand. “I am China, one of the few members of the Company that you haven’t met.”

  “How do you do,” Cass replied stiffly, shaking her hand. She was still mystified and slightly annoyed. “I thought you were all in the Farthest Lands?” she queried.

  “I was, but I wanted to come and meet you,” she replied.

  “But why did you kidnap me? I was coming here anyway,” Cass said, unable to hide her irritation.

  “I am sorry, I wanted to take you entirely by surprise to see how you fought. So please accept my apologies and I hope it will not mar our evening, for I have a problem that I am hoping you might be able to help me with. But shall we discuss it over some supper? I’m starving.”

  “Of course,” Cass replied and followed Idaliz and China through a doorway into an adjoining courtyard. It had a mulberry tree at its centre and Cass instantly recognized it as the courtyard in front of Mele’s house. A table had been set up with plates of crabfish fritters and a jug of summer wine. China poured them all a glass and they sat down together.

  Once they were settled, China began, “So, Cass, my problem is that Ada, another member of the Company who I think you met some time ago, has fallen in love with a peach farmer in Villuvia and wishes to leave us. I am of course delighted for Ada, but it means there is a space in the Company that needs to be filled. Various names have been put forward but it’s yours that keeps cropping up.” China took a sip of wine. “I wanted to find out if joining the Company was something that you might be interested in. As I’m sure you know it’s dangerous, secretive work and your life is not entirely your own. If you do decide to join you have to swear allegiance to us and our principles, and you’ll be sent where the Company decides the need is. So, what do you think? You don’t have to decide now, but is it something that you might be interested in?”

  Cass was so excited she could hardly find the words to reply, but somehow she managed to stutter, “Yes! I would be honoured to join.”

  “You’re sure? Don’t you want to think about it?” China asked.

  “No, I don’t need to think about it at all – I am absolutely positive that I would like to join,” Cass replied.

  “Good!” China exclaimed as Idaliz cheered loudly.

  “There is the small matter of your oath and then a tattoo at a later date, but I think we should eat these crabfish fritters first. Idaliz tells me they are the finest in the Mid Isles.”

  “They definitely are,” Idaliz said. “And I think we should toast Cass.”

  “To Cass and her long and glorious future with the Company!” China cried and they clinked glasses.

  Above them the violet sky darkened and the clouds of swifty birds circled above the rooftops around Mele’s house, before heading back to the Square of Obfuscation. A man, standing in the attic window of a nearby house, inspected them with his spyglass. Birds were his passion and every evening he watched them from his window. But as he gazed at their antics, he nearly dropped his spyglass in surprise. For there, among the grey birds, was a single bright blue intruder. He recognized it immediately. A woodland warbler. How amazing to see one so far south, he thought and then smiled, remembering their reputation. “What a lucky omen it must be!” he murmured to himself.

  A massive
thank you, as always, to my brilliant agent Catherine Pellegrino, for her invaluable advice and support. Huge thanks to the whole team at Stripes, particularly my editors Ruth Bennett and Mattie Whitehead, whose creative and patient editing has not only transformed the book but also made the whole process such a pleasure.

  Many thanks to Pip Johnson for creating such a fine looking book, to Maria Surducan for the beautiful cover and to Charlie Morris, for masterfully launching it into the world. Ella Whiddett, Elle Waddington and the Rights team – thank you for all your hard work. And finally, I want to include a shout out to all the book bloggers, teachers, booksellers and librarians who have been so supportive of my books – your help is greatly appreciated.

  Harriet Whitehorn grew up in London where she still lives with her family. She is the author of the Violet series, which was nominated for several awards including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and the Freddie’s Amazing Bakery series.

  Copyright

  STRIPES PUBLISHING LIMITED

  An imprint of the Little Tiger Group

  1 Coda Studios, 189 Munster Road,

  London SW6 6AW

  First published in Great Britain by Stripes Publishing in 2019

  Text copyright © Harriet Whitehorn, 2019

  Illustration © Maria Surducan, 2019

  eISBN: 978–1–78895–144–9

  The right of Harriet Whitehorn and Maria Surducan to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition, being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.