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

glowing . . . a green glow, getting brighter and brighter every instant.

The assassin saw the light reflected in Oni’s eyes and turned around, letting her go. He straightened up, staring, his back to her. Oni came out of her trance and leaped for the window, wrenching it open. Even then the assassin didn’t react; he seemed to have forgotten all about her. She scrambled over the ledge, almost falling out headfirst, and saved herself at the last moment by grabbing the pipe. There was a blinding flash, and then the room went dark.

Oni knew, somehow, that the room was now empty.

She didn’t remember how she got down the pipe, how she hurtled along the tiny alley out into the street. Her next memory was of being three blocks away, bent over, trying to catch her breath.

That was bad magic. Very bad magic. Cold like something dead, like an absence that shouldn’t be there. She felt it with every hair on her body, deep down in the marrow of her bones.

But whatever it was, it had saved her life.

WHEN ONI TOLD THE OTHERS THAT THE PAPERS were gone, El started to cry, but not for long because there wasn’t a lot of point.

“What are we going to do, Pip? We got nowhere to go now.”

“We still got our place,” said Pip stoutly. “Everybody knows it’s ours.”

“But Missus Pledge, she said we needed the deed, so no one could take it away.”

“We can’t go there now, anyway.”

“I wish you never took that box. I wish I never saw that Heart. It’s all spoiled.”

“What, our beautiful lives?”

“It was all right,” said El. She sniffed and went to wipe her nose on her sleeve and then stopped herself and took out a clean handkerchief. Amina had given them both new clothes, and she didn’t want to dirty her dress.

“No, it wasn’t.”

The siblings started to argue. Oni rolled her eyes and for the first time looked at Amina. Their gazes locked and she went quiet for a while, then flashed her mother a rueful smile.

“I’m sorry, Ma,” she said. “You were right.”

“Next time, listen,” said Amina. “I’ve only got one of you.”

“What do you think that magic was?”

Amina frowned. “I don’t want to guess,” she said.

“It was bad, Ma. It made me feel all sick inside.”

Amina was silent for a few moments, staring at the wall. “I think it’s a Rupture,” she said. “And if it is, it would most likely have been caused by the Heart.” She looked at Pip. “Pip?”

Pip was still in the middle of listing all his grievances and didn’t hear her.

“Shut up, Pip,” said Oni, cuffing him gently. “Ma’s asking you something.”

“Has the Heart done anything odd today? Did anything change while Oni was out?”

“It went really cold this morning, just for a little while. Sometimes it feels like this ball of ice.”

“When was that?”

“When we were shelling the beans.”

Amina thought. “About an hour ago,” she said. “That would have been about when Oni was in your place.”

“You think the Heart saved Oni?”

“Maybe.” Amina directed her gaze at her daughter. “Did you touch it?”

Oni nodded slowly. “When Pip showed me. I felt sorry for it,” she said. She glanced at Pip. “It was warm, like it was skin.”

“Then maybe it has a connection to you,” said Amina.

“But Pip touches it all the time!” El said. “What does that mean? Is it going to hurt him?”

“I don’t know,” said Amina. “It’s a powerful magical artifact, which means danger. I think Pip has to be very careful. What do you feel about the Heart, Pip?”

Pip, his attention arrested, thought it over. “I feel . . . that it likes me,” he said slowly. “Like it’s a person. It wants to be looked after. It doesn’t want to be left alone, because it’s lonely.” His hand automatically went to his hip, where the Heart now lay in the deep buttoned pockets of his new breeches. “I think it’s on our side.”

“It’s not on anybody’s side,” said Amina sharply. “You remember that.”

Pip nodded, but he didn’t agree. If the Heart was making assassins disappear, it was definitely on their side.

“So who do you think stole our will?” he said, to change the subject. “And why? What would assassins want with our place?”

“I don’t think it is a will,” said Amina.

“It is so!” said El hotly. “Missus Pledge told us! She showed us the words and everything, the squiggly shapes that meant Eleanor and Pipistrel, so we’d know what it said.”

Amina smiled. “Maybe it’s a will as well,” she said. “Things can have more than one purpose.”

“It’s just an old parchment, in red and black ink and special writing,” said El. “It didn’t look magic. Just important.”

“It might be the instructions on how to use the Heart,” said Amina. “Missus Pledge might have had it from Old Missus Pledge.”

“Maybe it’s just what El and Pip think it is,” said Oni.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” said Amina. “But we won’t know until we get it back.”

El looked up, her eyes shining with hope. “Are we going to get our papers back, Amina?”

“If the assassins took them, they would have given them to Cardinal Lamir,” said Oni.

“Exactly.”

“But how would you get them back from him?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Amina. She drummed her fingers on the table, thinking, and then reached a decision.

“I’m going out. I need to talk to the Witches’ Council. All of you, stay here — even you, Oni. I don’t want you going back to your place, or to work. Don’t make any noise. And don’t answer the door.”

“When will you be back, Ma?”

Amina, putting on a bonnet and coat, didn’t answer. Instead, she turned to Pip. “Think good thoughts, boy. It might make the Heart behave itself.”

As the door swung shut behind her, Pip stared at Oni. “Think good thoughts?” said Pip. “What sort of good thoughts?”

“I don’t know,” said Oni. “But think them anyway.”

THERE WAS GOING TO BE A STORM. SIBELIUS