Lily and the Traitors` Spell

by Webb, Holly

  ‘I don’t think you can touch it – it isn’t really there. It’s only a picture – an imagining, built out of both of our magics.’

  ‘Do we have to unpick all of it?’ Lily murmured. It was enormous, and so complicated – hundreds and hundreds of interwoven pictures that moved as she tried to stare at them, as if they were sliding away from her eyes. If she looked hard enough at one part of the pattern, and tried to think of it as only sewing, and not part of her sister, then she could see the stitches, but it made her eyes burn, and water.

  ‘No,’ her father muttered. ‘There are darker threads, do you see? It takes a little while to pick them out. In a lot of the small images, it’s as though they’re sewn with a double thread.’

  ‘Two strands of silk on the same needle,’ Rose agreed. ‘A trick, to mix your colours. It adds depth to the embroidery.’

  ‘Well, it’s done that here... Sewn in and out of your life story, Georgie. This thread of dark magic...’ Her father sighed.

  ‘Not all of it,’ Lily said suddenly, rubbing her hand across her watering eyes and staring up at the central part of the picture hanging above them. ‘Look, in the middle. It’s brighter there. As though it’s been sewn without the shadow thread.’

  Her father nodded. ‘The magic doesn’t go all the way through you,’ he told Georgie, squeezing her hand. ‘But you can see how tightly it’s sewn in. How much we need to unpick.’

  ‘What happens if we can’t?’ Lily asked in a small voice, but no one answered. In so many of the tiny pictures, the darker thread was part of the design, greying out the brightness of her sister almost entirely. She strained her eyes to stare at one of the darkest, and shivered, seeing that eerie dust-wolf that Georgie had called up to save them from Mama’s servant, Marten. She’d had to use one of the strange, dark spells inside her, and Lily remembered how horribly strong it had been, and how easily the black spell had flowed from Georgie’s fingers, building their guardian out of street dust, and a little blood from the scratches Marten’s claws had made. And then how quickly it had turned on them, after Marten had been despatched. It was hungry, and only Lily’s weather magic had defeated it. It was magic she hardly knew she had, the calling of storms, something the Powers children had always been known for. She had felt it inside, when Henrietta had reminded her of her own growing magic.

  The stitched wolf had a dusty grey coat with a dark reddish tinge, and Marten was backing away from it, greenish spell-flesh torn and leaking as she tried to flee back to their mother. If they pulled out all the dark threads here, then there’d be hardly any picture left, just Lily, clinging in panic to Henrietta, and the storm cloud gathering above waiting to wash the dust-wolf away into the gutters.

  ‘It isn’t just a dark thread,’ Lily said, frowning. ‘I mean, Henrietta’s black, and she’s in the tapestry – it’s a different sort of darkness. There’s an intensity to it. It sucks the colours out.’ She tried not to glance at Georgie as she heard herself say it, but she didn’t need to see her to remember her sister’s white-fair hair and the grey paleness of her skin.

  ‘Where does it start?’ their father murmured, stretching out a hand towards the tapestry, as he tried to trace the dark thread back. Everyone stared at the stitching, daunted by the shadows woven through it, until Georgie stood up, with Henrietta in her arms, and pointed. Argent curled his tail away, so that they could walk towards the tapestry, but his wings were hunched forward, as though he wanted to shelter them all in his magic.

  ‘Here.’ Georgie’s voice was very flat, and Lily could tell that she was squashing her feelings down, in case she cried. Or screamed, perhaps. She stood up too, and went closer, looking where Georgie pointed. Their father did something with the magic, and the curtain swayed in a breeze that wasn’t there, and that part of the tapestry shifted and grew larger. Lily shivered as she looked at the embroidered version of her sister, so much younger, her cheeks fatter and pinkened, but already so serious-looking. Lily was sure she couldn’t be more than seven. She was standing with their mother, and Lily recognised the library at Merrythought House, the dark wood of the furniture, and here and there the clever glint of gold thread, showing the gilded lettering on the leather of the books. Nerissa Powers had Georgie’s hands in hers, and her little daughter stood in front of her, her arms lifted up. Their mouths were open, as they chanted a spell together, and their mother was smiling. A dark thread was coiling out of her mouth and wreathing itself around Georgie, blurring the brightness of her fair hair and smudging her pink dress with shadows.

  ‘It started there,’ Georgie said, in a small, shaken voice. Lily hissed and clawed at the picture with her nails, suddenly furious and desperate to rip it out. The threads caught in her nails and stuck to her fingers, sticky and burning. But that first dark thread was hanging loose now, trailing out of the design, flapping a little, like a pinned snake.

  ‘Lily, be careful!’ her father shouted, catching her hands as they went to rip at it again. ‘Look at Georgie!’ Lily did – and frowned. There were holes in the picture now, where she’d ripped the stitching out, but then, that was what they wanted, wasn’t it? The child in the picture was smiling, still, even if she was a bit patchy.

  ‘Look at her!’

  Then Georgie moaned and Lily realised what he meant. The real Georgie, the one who was lying on the floor, her arms wrapped tightly round her chest, while Henrietta scratched frantically at her head.

  ‘Pulling the thread out did that?’ Lily whispered, horrified. Georgie moaned again, and twisted, and then her eyes opened, their blue darkened with tears.

  ‘Keep going! If I can feel it like this, it must be working. You were wrenching something out of me, but it felt right, Lily, in an awful sort of way.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can,’ Lily faltered, watching Georgie writhe as the spells convulsed inside her again.

  ‘Hurry!’ Georgie wailed, and Lily turned resolutely away from her sister. With her teeth gritted, she hooked her nails into the next scene, one she almost remembered. Georgie was sitting in the library, a stack of books piled around her, her long hair trailing across the page as she studied the huge book in front of her. The book itself was spewing out shadowy magic this time, and Georgie was swallowed up inside it, reaching herself into the darkness and letting it suck her in.

  I wonder where I was? Lily thought to herself. Perhaps out on the beach, or running through the overgrown orchards with Peter, happily forgotten. I was so lucky. Closing her eyes for a moment – but wishing she could close her ears too – Lily tore at the threads, ripping and pulling, shredding the book and its strangling magic, and leaving her sister sitting reading nothing. It wasn’t until the shadowy coils of the book were gone, though, that Lily saw the figure by the window, turning back to look at her daughter. Her daughters, maybe. Lily had a strange feeling that even through the clever spell that turned all this into so much thread, her mother could see what she was doing. So much so that when a thin, high scream made her pull her clawed fingers away, for a moment she thought her mother was howling at her from inside the spell.

  But it was Georgie, whiter than ever, her eyes black and open but seeing nothing as she screamed and banged her hands against the floor.

  ‘Lily, stop it! It’s too much for her.’ Rose lifted Georgie’s head onto her lap and began to croon to her in sweet spells of healing and comfort. ‘The silks are binding you back together, sweetness. Darning the holes,’ she murmured. ‘Feel yourself knitting back together, growing strong and whole... Stitch her, bind her, heal her, stitch her...’ she repeated, weaving her fingers over Georgie’s heart.

  Lily started to cry, hating herself for hurting her sister so, but Henrietta barked sharply at her to be picked up, and she clung to the little dog, gulping back tears.

  ‘She asked you to. And it needs doing.’

  ‘Yes, but look at her...’ Lily moaned. ‘What if
she dies?’

  Her father turned from helping Rose, and beckoned Lily over. ‘Remember what she said. She was certain it would be better that way.’

  ‘Then you think she is going to...’ Lily sobbed.

  He shook his head. ‘No. But I don’t think she’s cured, either. Sorry, Lily. This went on too long. Years and years. Layers and layers of spells. It’s going to take more than just one try. We have to do this slowly if we want anything of her to be left when we’re finished.’ He swallowed. ‘I have seen people who’ve had spells torn out of them, Lily. If you’re not careful, you can take everything else too, and then they’re just a husk.’

  ‘I can hear you, you know,’ a tiny voice said from the floor. ‘And I still don’t care. Keep trying.’

  Lily crouched down beside her. ‘Tomorrow, if you’re well enough, yes? You’ll cast the spell again, won’t you?’ she added to her father. ‘To make the tapestry.’ Lily smiled down at her sister, trying to look as though she didn’t feel torn too. ‘Tomorrow, please can I use your good sewing scissors? Look, I’ve torn one of my nails nearly off on your stupid spell!’

  She didn’t look the same. Last time Lily had seen their mother properly, she had been in disguise, under a glamour that turned her into a crotchety old lady, on board the ship taking them to New York. Now she was back to her old self, wearing one of the stiff silk dresses Lily remembered so well, sweeping along the dusty floors at Merrythought, with one of her cats padding after her. Why didn’t she have a familiar, Lily wondered, with sleepy dream-logic, and her mother smiled, baring too many teeth. Why would I want a cat to tell me what to do, little Lily flower? I prefer my pets silent, or bound to me with a little more than loyalty.

  Lily nodded slowly, remembering the spell-creatures. Marten, her mother’s spell-flesh servant, and the foul parrot that she had used to complete her old-lady disguise.

  Now, why am I in your dream, little flower, and not with my Georgiana?

  I don’t know, Lily murmured. She was too asleep to be frightened, but she was conscious of a faint sense of worry. That this was not a good thing that was happening. That she ought to be scared.

  The spells should lead me straight to Georgiana, her mother went on, sweeping further along the passageway of the dream, and then swirling round, her stiff skirts rustling, the orange-red silk glowing like flames in the dark. Unless of course someone has been tampering with them, she said, striding out of the darkness towards Lily, her dark eyes glittering with anger. Have you, Lily? Have you been touching things you shouldn’t? I can feel it – and there are broken spells staining your fingers. That was really very stupid, Lily. And very clever, all at the same time. Clever, and stupid, and surprising. You should not be able to break a spell of mine, not by yourself. So who has been helping you, that’s the question. Georgiana would not be able to break the spells herself... Who have you found? Her eyes widened, and the shine died out of them as she leaned over the bed, so that they looked like dull black stones. ‘Surely not...’ she murmured, reaching out a pale hand, her fingers impossibly long. They were almost touching Lily now, closer and closer – until Lily screamed, and hit her hand away, and woke up.

  ‘What is it?’ Lily felt arms close around her, and for a moment she fought them, but then she realised she was awake, and this was Georgie. ‘It’s me, Lily, stop it, what’s the matter? Did you have a bad dream?’

  Lily nodded slowly, blinking in the darkness of their room at the theatre. She could feel Georgie beside her, and Henrietta on her knees. The black dog was staring at her anxiously, eyes glowing faintly greenish, like little lamps. ‘You don’t dream often,’ she growled. ‘Not like that.’

  ‘I know,’ Lily muttered, her voice dry and husky. ‘Did you see?’

  ‘Only flashes. Of her. That’s who it was, yes? Your mother?’

  ‘Mama?’ Georgie’s arms went suddenly tighter around her, and Lily clung back just as hard. The pair of them were knotted together, wrapped around each other like vines.

  ‘It was just a dream,’ Lily whispered hopefully.

  ‘Really?’ Georgie sighed. ‘Have you ever dreamed of her before?’

  Lily shook her head.

  ‘So why now? I don’t think it was a dream. It was a prophecy, maybe a foretelling.’

  ‘No. It was happening right then. She was there. I think she saw me, and she knew what I’d done. She said I’d been meddling with her spells.’ Lily swallowed. ‘I think she might be coming to stop us.’

  ‘She doesn’t know where we are,’ Henrietta put in quickly, but Lily was silent. ‘Does she?’

  ‘We tampered with the spells,’ Lily whispered. ‘I don’t know how they work. Maybe she can follow them, if they’re calling to her. Maybe she can find us.’

  ‘She never could before,’ Georgie said doubtfully. ‘That’s why she had to send Marten, to sniff us out, when we first ran away.’

  ‘But remember how the spells started to come alive, when she got close to you in New York?’ Lily reminded her. She was getting used to the darkness now. Georgie’s face was a pale blur, with a glint of worried eyes. ‘They’ve grown stronger, and she’s linked to them, somehow.’ She could feel Georgie’s ribs heaving with her quick, panicked breaths. She laid her cheek gently against her sister’s shoulder. ‘Mama doesn’t know we have Argent, remember. And she doesn’t have any Fell blood in her like we do. She won’t understand him like us, and he won’t want to help her. He’s on our side.’ Lily was almost sure he was, anyway. She had a sense that dragons could be unpredictable.

  Georgie stroked her hair. ‘I suppose that is quite a big advantage,’ she agreed, laughing a little.

  Lily giggled in the darkness, ‘Quite big, yes,’ and Georgie elbowed her.

  When they woke again, they could hear the usual bustle of the theatre around them, and Lily realised they had slept late. ‘We should go and tell Father, I suppose,’ she said to Georgie, as they dressed, buttoning each other up hurriedly, and splashing their faces from the jug and bowl of water they kept on a stool in the corner.

  When they went up to the stage, they found their father with Daniel and Peter, discussing possible new tricks, while Argent slept stretched out along the back of the stage, as if he really were a piece of scenery. Scene painters were pottering around him, even climbing over him here and there, as they painted a new set of flats for one of the ballet acts.

  Daniel was showing their father the pistol for the bullet catch and he was admiring the sugar-coated bullets, hefting them in his hand and comparing their weight to the real ones.

  ‘Oh no, not that again,’ Lily muttered. ‘I told you how they nearly killed someone, didn’t I?’ she reminded Georgie.

  ‘Hello!’ Daniel waved to them excitedly. ‘Your father has come up with some very interesting suggestions for the illusion, to make it seem more real. Apparently, one can make a most convincing fake blood, just from a certain kind of dried beetle!’

  Lily nodded. ‘Where’s Rose?’ she asked.

  ‘Gone to see if she can find an old friend,’ her father explained. ‘She wants to get hold of some spell ingredients, to protect Georgie when we try to unravel the thread magic again. This friend of hers runs a – ummm – black market operation, finding that sort of thing for people like us...’

  Lily nodded. That was a perfectly sensible thing for Rose to do. The right thing to do, in fact. If there weren’t a ruthless, half-mad magician searching out the very child you were trying to protect. They needed Rose to be here, right now, helping them cast some kind of warding spells around the theatre, perhaps.

  Peter was staring at her curiously. He twitched his eyebrows at her in a way that would usually make her want to laugh.

  ‘What’s the matter, little flower?’ her father asked, seeing her and Peter exchanging glances.

  Lily looked at him silently for a moment
. She really didn’t know how to tell him. After all, Nerissa Powers was their mother, but she’d been his wife first. Had he missed her, when he’d been in prison? He hated that she was involved in the plot to overthrow the queen, but Lily didn’t know what else he felt about her.

  ‘Your wife’s coming,’ Henrietta told him bluntly.

  ‘Nerissa? Here?’

  ‘I dreamed her here. I’m really sorry,’ Lily whispered.

  ‘No, it isn’t your fault. We should have thought, of course, that the spells would bring her.’ He sat down wearily on the edge of one of the cabinets, and Lily watched Daniel flinch. It wasn’t a good idea to sit on them. You never knew quite what hidden mechanism might pop out. But her father seemed not to have set off anything dangerous. ‘We should ward the theatre,’ he muttered, gazing around and starting to count doors. But Lily wasn’t listening any more.

  The pinkness that had come back to Georgie’s cheeks after their work yesterday, just the faintest flush of colour, had drained away again. She was twitching, her fingers clenching and unclenching, her eyes darting from side to side.

  ‘Now? Already?’ Lily gasped.

  ‘She’s coming!’ Georgie hissed.

  It wasn’t an answer to Lily’s question. The spells wouldn’t let Georgie hear. A faint, pinkish vapour had started to issue from her nose and mouth, like Argent’s magical smoke. Perhaps that was where she’d learned it, or the magic inside her had. Lily took a step closer, and the mist swirled into her hair, coating it with some sort of cold sticky substance. She had no idea what it was – and she was pretty sure Georgie hadn’t either.

  As the pinkish film coated her mouth and nose and eyes, Lily blinked, feeling her blood begin to slow down and cool inside her. Her thoughts slowed too, congealing into a dull acceptance of whatever it was she must do.

  Peter caught up the polishing rag he used on the cabinets, and smothered the stuff in it, scrubbing it away from Lily’s face and throwing the rag onto the wooden boards in disgust, watching it blacken and sizzle.