by Webb, Holly
His face still deathly serious – though Lily could tell he was longing to grin – Daniel began to beckon Georgie down, while Lily kneeled at the foot of the platform, trying to look enthralled. She was close enough to the mechanism to hear a sudden squeak, and a crack. Daniel heard it too – she could see his hands jolt as he tried to work out what was going on, and he glanced behind him with his eyebrows practically in his hair. Georgie’s foot twitched anxiously, and she slid forwards a little. She was sliding off the board, Lily realised in horror, although to the audience it only looked as if Daniel’s spell was slipping. He redoubled his mystical gestures, and hissed to Sam behind the curtain. ‘Hurry! Get her down!’
‘The joist’s cracking! Someone’s sawn it half-through!’ Sam hissed back. ‘I bring her down any faster and it’ll split!’
Georgie was keeping almost perfectly still, her hands crossed over her chest, but Lily could see her eyelids fluttering, and knew that she was panicking. Should she fall, and ruin the act she’d worked so hard for, or use just a little of her magic to save herself? Georgie adored the act, playing up to her Northern Princess image of frosty grace. It would be terrible to fall in front of a packed house. And it would expose the trick.
Lily swallowed. What if something dreadful happened? What if Georgie exploded the entire audience this time, not just a chair? And how much magic was it safe to use before Marten scented them again?
A faint silvery shimmer was rippling the long gauzy skirts now, as Georgie started a spell to hold herself up – and Lily caught Henrietta’s horrified expression, and knew they couldn’t risk it.
She stood up, forcing herself to do it slowly, and ran to Daniel’s side, mimicking his gestures as if she was desperately adding extra power to his spell – as though this was such difficult magic that he needed her help.
‘Georgie, let me!’ she breathed, and for a second the silvery shimmer faded, and then grew stronger, as Lily sealed the splintering wood of the joist with a binding spell that probably meant no one would ever be able to cut through it again. Every fibre of the wood remembered the tree it had grown in, and bound itself together like hardened oak.
The audience sighed blissfully as a cloud of silver dust joined the chemical smoke that Ned had been pumping out from behind the curtain, and Georgie came back down to the platform, and allowed herself to be woken from her trance with only the slightest hint of a glare at Daniel.
Then they ran to the edge of the stage, and bowed, and bowed again, as the audience thundered their applause. But Lily was too angry to appreciate the storm of clapping and the cheers. She simply wanted to get off the stage, so she could go and wring a little songbird’s neck.
Lydia was standing in the wings, her face grey under the greasepaint. Lily had been planning to – to – she wasn’t quite sure what, but she could guarantee Lydia wouldn’t have liked it.
But the other girl’s shocked face stopped her, and she lunged for Henrietta’s collar, as the little pug was growling furiously. Of course. Lydia had never really believed their act was magical. But now she’d seen Lily rescue Georgie, and she knew that Lily had used magic – because she had been the one who sabotaged the lift. Georgie grabbed Lily’s arm, and pulled her back. ‘What are we going to say?’ she hissed.
Lily hugged her, half out of relief that she hadn’t been hurt, and half to hide what she was about to say. ‘I think she knows. But we can’t admit it. We just have to pretend it was an accident, and we were lucky to get away with it.’ She glanced up at Daniel, who was coming offstage behind them, and he nodded, although he looked angry.
He quickly smoothed his frown into a worried look, and caught Georgie’s shoulders. ‘Georgie! Are you all right? I don’t understand what happened, there must have been a fault in the mechanism. I’m so sorry!’
Georgie shook her head, and leaned against him. She looked frightened, and not at all magical. Lily could see that it was because Georgie didn’t know what to say, but it worked. All the female artistes were cooing and fussing around her, and she was led off by Maria and Mrs Hopkins the Elephant Woman for a reviving cup of tea.
Sam barrelled out from behind the curtain, closely followed by Ned, his apprentice, who was looking scared. Lily eyed him, thoughtfully, and Ned turned slightly green. ‘Somebody sawed through—’
Daniel drew a finger swiftly across his throat. So swiftly that Lily only saw it because she was looking.
Sam blinked, and glared at Daniel. ‘I shall be having words with the timber merchant,’ he muttered. ‘Unreliable – hmm. Ladies present.’
‘Quite.’ Daniel nodded. ‘We were lucky. We shall have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.’ He was usually such a mild-mannered and pleasant person that the icy tone of his voice came as a shock, and Lily drew closer to Sam, whose huge, bearlike bulk was suddenly comforting. Sam looked down at her doubtfully for a minute, and then he hugged her tightly against his velveteen waistcoat.
He knew, Lily realised, with a sudden jump in her stomach. He knew she’d used real magic to rescue Georgie. But he didn’t care. He liked her anyway. Lily closed her eyes. She was so tired that it felt as though her bones were melting. She could hardly hold herself up. But she forced her eyes open. What were they going to do about Lydia? She knew too, now. And probably so did her mother. Lily glanced around the wings. Almost everyone had gone – only the stage crew were tidying away, resetting the scenery for the next performance. Sam’s apprentice Ned was skulking in a corner, fiddling with some ropes, still looking pale and miserable.
‘He’s sweet on her,’ Sam muttered. ‘Gulpy little fool. She probably offered him a kiss.’
‘You mean Ned sawed through the joist?’ Lily asked, shocked. She liked Ned. He was funny, and he fed Henrietta the crusts of his sandwiches.
Daniel took a step towards Ned, his teeth showing in a wolfish sort of way.
‘No!’ Sam scowled, and caught his coat. ‘Of course not. If I’d thought that I’d have thrown him halfway across the street. He let her see the mechanism, though, I’ll bet. Oh, Ned, it’s so clever, won’t you show me how they do it?’ This last was in a high, silly voice that sounded amazingly like Lydia, coming from someone as big as Sam. ‘He helped me build it, you see,’ Sam added gloomily. ‘The master wanted it double-quick time.’
Henrietta let out a little breath of a growl, staring at the unhappy-looking boy, who was carefully not looking at them.
‘Don’t throw him out,’ Lily begged. ‘It’s Lydia’s fault, not his. Did you see where she went, Daniel? I don’t know what she’s going to do. She can’t tell anyone about the spell. She only knows because she was the one who spoiled the trick. She’s never going to own up to that, is she?’
Daniel shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps not here, in the theatre. But if she put it that she was suspicious before, and she sabotaged us as a trap…’
‘Oh.’ Lily nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose. Then she’s going to tell, isn’t she?’ Her heart was racing, and she glanced from side to side, like an animal in a trap. The magic inside her was straining and fluttering too. She could use it to escape, she knew she could. But then it wouldn’t be only their mother who was chasing her – it would be a manhunt.
The ushers had already barred the front doors, but now there was a hammering and a shouting at the front of the theatre, and Daniel grimaced. ‘That was quick. I wonder where she ran to?’
‘Is that them?’ Lily asked, her voice a thready squeak.
‘Don’t you worry, my lovely,’ Sam muttered, thrusting her behind him. ‘No one’s going to listen to that little viper.’ He couldn’t quite hide the worry in his words, though, however hard he tried. He hauled on the ropes that opened the curtains, and revealed three men, two of them in black uniforms, and one in a smart overcoat, walking down the aisle, with one of the ushers hurrying after them, looking apologetically at Daniel.
‘Is there something wrong?’ Daniel asked, advancing to the front of the stage. ‘Alfred, have we been bur
gled?’ he asked the usher, anxiously.
‘No, sir. They say they want to talk to you, and Miss Georgie and Miss Lily. About the act…’
‘Really?’ Daniel cast a puzzled glance at the policemen, and Lily noted it admiringly. Daniel had been an actor before he inherited his uncle’s theatre, and she could see that he must have been good. He called back into the wings. ‘Ned, go and fetch Miss Georgie, please.’
Ned, now looking even more miserable, nodded, and went off in the direction of the dressing rooms. The two policemen stood uncertainly in the middle of the stage, eyeing the scenery, while the stagehands worked round them with irritable grunts. The smartly dressed man strolled around the stage, examining Georgie’s platform and the Demon Cabinet with particular interest.
‘Would you like me to show you anything?’ Daniel asked helpfully, but the man shook his head. ‘I’ll wait for all the young ladies to be present.’ His voice was light, and sweet, and he sounded rather aristocratic. He glanced back down into the auditorium, and Lily saw with a surge of fury that Lydia and her mother were coming in. Lydia had taken off her make-up, and was wearing one of her more sober dresses, a sailor outfit that made her look her actual age. She had clearly decided she’d look more innocent that way.
Georgie came back onto the stage. Obviously Ned hadn’t kept his message quiet, as half the acts were following her, crowding curiously into the wings, and staring at the police, and the officer of the Queen’s Men, who looked somewhat taken aback. Georgie hurried over to Lily and took her hand. ‘What’s the matter? Ned only said the police were here.’
‘Miss Georgie Lancing?’ the man in the overcoat asked. They had given it out that they were Daniel’s distant cousins, and so they’d borrowed his surname.
Georgie nodded anxiously.
‘And Miss Lily Lancing? Mr Daniel Lancing?’
Daniel drew himself up to his full height – which was very high, much taller than the officer, who was a small, slim man. But it didn’t seem to worry him.
‘I am Edward Hope. I represent Her Majesty, Queen Sophia, serving on her special commission in search of outlawed practices.’
‘He’s one of the Queen’s Men,’ someone whispered in the wings, and there was a sudden anxious hissing, as the words went round the crowd.
Edward Hope only smiled faintly, as if a small child was misbehaving, and he was pretending not to see. ‘We have had…a report. About your theatre, Mr Lancing. About your act, in particular.’
Daniel nodded, smiling back. ‘I had wondered if your department would become interested,’ he admitted, shrugging a little. ‘I suppose we ought to take it as a compliment, girls, don’t you think?’
Lily nodded, and tried to smile, but she wasn’t nearly as good an actor as he was.
‘You deny it, then? That you’re using forbidden practices?’
Daniel snorted. ‘Real magic?’ He leaned forward, and pulled the handkerchief out of Edward Hope’s waistcoat pocket. He did it so quickly that Hope hardly saw what was happening, and he watched bemused as a string of multicoloured handkerchiefs streamed out of his pocket, and Henrietta leaped to catch them, and chased off around the stage, before gathering them up, and sitting on her hindquarters to offer them prettily back to him.
‘You see? Clever fingers, Mr Hope. And a trained dog. No magic.’ Daniel smiled, and handed him back the original handkerchief.
Edward Hope leaned down to pat Henrietta. ‘A very clever little creature, indeed. But what was reported to me was rather more dramatic, Mr Lancing. A girl rising into the air? One of these young ladies?’
Georgie nodded. ‘Me,’ she whispered nervously.
‘My young assistant has had a shock tonight,’ Daniel put in, very smoothly. ‘Our apparatus went strangely wrong, and I’m afraid she was almost injured. It was a new trick, the first time we’d performed it. The very culmination of our art! It was extremely annoying.’ He sighed. ‘We are afraid the machinery was sabotaged. Someone attempted to cut through a vital piece.’
There was an angry mutter amongst those watching, and several people stepped out of the wings to glare at Lydia.
Daniel stared at her too. ‘I’m only sorry, Mr Hope, if your time has been wasted out of petty spite, from a jealous performer.’
Mr Hope nodded. ‘So you maintain that no magic is involved in any of your – tricks, you call them?’
‘That’s what they are, Mr Hope. We trick the eye. We make the audience see something that isn’t there.’ Daniel laughed. ‘Or, more often, we hide something that is. As in the trick that went so wrong tonight. Georgie, dear one, do you think you can bear to demonstrate for Mr Hope?’
‘It’s mended?’ Georgie asked, looking at him hesitantly. Lily could see how frightened she was. Georgie’s eyes were purple, she realised, suddenly feeling far more worried about her sister than she was about any officer of the queen. If Georgie was too frightened, would she be able to control her magic?
‘I promise.’ Daniel blinked suddenly, realising that there was no sign of any damage on the wooden joist. ‘In fact, I had Sam replace the damaged piece straight away – I was going to ask you to rehearse the trick again once you’d recovered. I know it seems cruel, Mr Hope, but we must all suffer for our art.
‘Watching from the stage itself, Mr Hope, you may be able to see more clearly how the trick is managed, but I promise you, from the audience, it is most convincing.’ Daniel bowed, and took Georgie by the hand, leading her to the platform, and waving his hand in front of her face, so that she seemed to fall into a deep trance, moving strangely, like some sort of clockwork doll. She lay down on the platform, her shimmering skirts trailing down the sides, and Daniel began to beckon her upwards. There was a slight but definitely audible squeak, and he grimaced apologetically at the queen’s officer. ‘The music covers a multitude of sins, Mr Hope. Lily, the hoop, dear, don’t forget yourself.’
Lily had been watching Georgie, and hardly heard him. Surely she didn’t usually let her arms swing loose like that? She looked almost dead…
Henrietta ran back onto the stage, dragging the hoop, and Mr Hope gave a little snort of laughter. He liked dogs, Lily realised thankfully. It was a point in their favour. But Georgie didn’t even seem to be breathing.
‘My young assistant does a most remarkable impression of a hypnotic trance, don’t you think?’ Daniel asked, casting a worried glance at Lily. ‘And now I pass the hoop around her – like so – to make it perfectly clear that she is suspended in midair – absolutely no connection with the ground at all. Ah, did you see, Mr Hope? The clever twist of the hoop, avoiding the wooden joist?’
‘It’s simply a lifting mechanism?’ Mr Hope came closer. ‘And her dress hides the board she’s lying on. Very clever, Mr Lancing. Most convincing.’
‘When you bear in mind the music, and the chemical smoke,’ Daniel added apologetically. ‘I’m afraid your time has been quite wasted…’
But Edward Hope was staring at Georgie, his eyebrows drawing together. He caught one of her hands, and lifted it, watching how it swung back bonelessly. ‘Wake up, miss,’ he told her sharply.
Georgie didn’t.
She couldn’t, Lily realised, running to catch her up tightly and hold her, and seeing Georgie’s head roll back. Terrified by the sabotage of the trick earlier on, and arrival of the police, Georgie had disappeared inside herself, where she felt safest. Her twisted magic had sealed her away, and taken her over. Who knew what else it was planning?
‘She’s fainted,’ Lily told Daniel. ‘She’s frightened, you know how highly strung she is!’ She stared into his puzzled eyes, willing him to understand.
‘Oh dear. Maria! Come and help us, please.’ The little wardrobe mistress hurried clucking onto the stage. ‘Miss Georgie’s fainted again.’ He shrugged apologetically at Hope. ‘She’s very prone to it, I’m afraid. Dramatic temperament, you know, and she was very shocked by the accident earlier on. Sam!’
Sam’s bearded face poked through betw
een the curtains, giving Hope a very good view of the lifting mechanism.
Daniel flinched. ‘I do hope we can trust you, sir, not to reveal our secrets to any other theatres. Sam, could you carry Miss Georgie back to her dressing room? She’s collapsed again.’
‘Tch. Poor little thing,’ Sam muttered, catching Georgie up, and Edward Hope watched, frowning a little, as he began to carry her away.
‘No!’ The shout came from below the stage, where Lydia was standing in front of the first row of chairs. ‘Don’t you see? They’re hiding it from you! She cast a spell, Lily did it. The younger one, I told you! She must have done, I cut it almost through…’ She trailed off, as Sam advanced to the edge of the stage, looking more bearlike than ever.
‘It was you, then, was it! Trying to break my machinery? You could have half killed her!’
‘Little vixen,’ Maria called angrily. ‘Jealous spite, that’s what it is, because Miss Georgie got her picture in the paper.’
‘Don’t you speak about my Lydia like that! My golden-voiced angel, jealous of some nasty trickster!’ Mrs Lacey’s chins wobbled as she screamed back, and various other performers surged forward to tell her just what they thought of her.
Daniel shook his head sorrowfully. ‘All so highly strung,’ he explained to Mr Hope.
‘Hmm.’ Mr Hope stepped back delicately, as though he thought someone might soil his shoes. ‘It does seem to have been an unfortunate – misunderstanding. But do be careful, Mr Lancing, won’t you? Your act does run a rather fine line.’
