by Webb, Holly
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 more slowly 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 on stage 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. However much one hated someone offstage, onstage one smiled and laughed and acted like the best of friends. 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 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.
‘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 and 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…
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