The Threads of Magic by Alison Croggon (best books for students to read .TXT) 📗

them in a globe of light, keeping the shadows at bay . . . As he held it out, it pulsed under his hand, and he almost dropped it. Georgette stared at it with fascination and then, like Oni, reached out and stroked it with a finger.

“Don’t touch it,” Amina said sharply, too late. “The fewer who touch it, the better.”

Georgette drew back her hand, but she kept staring at it. The color had ebbed from her cheeks. “It’s the boy in my dreams, isn’t it, Amina?” she whispered. “Remember, there’s always that little boy, crying . . . He’s so, so afraid . . .”

“What dreams?” said Pip, closing his hand possessively over the Heart and putting it back in his breeches. It didn’t seem right that Georgette knew more about his Heart than he did.

Georgette looked up, and Pip saw with surprise that her eyes were soft. “Dreams about my mother. There’s always a child crying in the dark somewhere, and I can’t help him . . .”

“So you dreamed that dream again?”

Pip thought that Amina was suddenly alert, like a mouse that had caught the scent of a cat and was trying to decide which way to run. He didn’t like thinking that.

“Last night. Only this time it was different. This time my mother told me to run. She held my arm so hard she bruised it, and when I woke up . . .” She pulled back her sleeve to show the purpling fingerprints on her forearm.

“Your mother is dead,” Amina said quietly. “Or should be.”

“She’s dead in my dream,” said Georgie, feeling defensive, although she didn’t know why. “She shriveled up into a pile of bones on the floor. It was horrible. That’s never happened before either.”

Amina held Georgie’s gaze for a few moments, as if she were testing whether what she said was true, and then gave a tiny nod. “That’s a good sign,” she said cryptically. “We must hope for the best.”

“I’m sure that she meant to warn me about King Oswald.” Georgette stared at the bruises and then pulled her sleeve back down quickly, as if they shamed her.

“Who’s King Oswald?” asked Oni.

“King Oswald of Awemt. I am to marry him. I can’t talk my father out of it this time. He threatened to have my head cut off if I disobeyed him.”

“Would he really do that?” said El, shocked.

“Probably not,” said Georgette gloomily. “But he doesn’t like having me as his heir, so if he can’t marry me off, he might.”

“Oh.” El sat back in her chair. “I thought princesses didn’t have to do anything they didn’t want.”

Georgette opened her mouth to explain that she spent her whole day doing things that she didn’t want, but thought better of it.

“I met King Oswald last night,” she said. “I knew then that I had to run. He frightened me more than anyone I’ve ever met in my life.”

“Why?” said Amina.

“I don’t know,” said Georgette. “That’s the thing. I don’t know.”

“Does he frighten you more than Cardinal Lamir?”

Georgette was surprised by the question and thought it over before she answered. “I suppose I’m used to the cardinal,” she said slowly. “I mean, I meet him every week. But when I saw them last night, him and King Oswald. They did seem . . . alike somehow . . .” She trailed into silence, frowning.

“I’ll tell you what you sensed,” said Amina. “Something we have long suspected: that the cardinal is a Specter.”

As she spoke, the candles guttered in a cold draft, their flames streaming behind them, almost going out. Pip’s hair stood up on his neck and all down his spine: it was exactly as if someone had opened a door and the wind had come rushing in. But there were no drafts in Amina’s kitchen.

PIP KNEW THAT THERE WERE THINGS YOU shouldn’t name, because naming them called misfortune to your door. He looked uneasily over his shoulder. Maybe there were unseen ears, listening as they spoke. Maybe there was a ghost, right there with them in the room.

Specters. Maybe even thinking about them was perilous.

Amina put her finger to her lips. She stood up and circled the table, breathing gently on each candle. The flames bent before her breath and then sprang upward, burning clear and straight, the fragrant smoke curling from each tip. She gazed intently at each candle flame, as if she were inspecting them for flaws, and then returned to her chair.

“Specters,” she said again. “That’s what we’re talking about.”

“And that’s to do with the Heart?” said Pip. He could feel a terrible dread opening up inside him, like a great big sinkhole in his middle.

“Oh yes. The Heart in your pocket was made because of Specters. The boy it belonged to was the chosen vessel for the Specter King of Clarel.”

Pip didn’t understand, but he didn’t like the sound of any of this. El was right: he should have thrown the Heart away. Why hadn’t he listened?

Maybe he had kept the Heart because, underneath everything, he felt a bit sorry for it. This Heart had belonged to a little boy. He tried to imagine what that really meant. He wondered who that child was, and what had happened to him.

El asked the question. “What’s a . . . Specter?”

They all looked at Amina, even Oni. For long moments she didn’t speak.

“I will tell you a story,” she said at last. “But first, I must tell you a little about witches. You have all heard of witches. You know that magic is punishable by death, because the king and the church say it is evil. And yes, sometimes magic is evil. There is nothing people make that can’t be turned into an instrument for harm. But the craft of magic is not evil. It was made so in the hands of some who saw its power. They stole it, and they broke its laws.”

Georgette surreptitiously pulled out a small silver pocket watch and checked it.