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

no responsive pulse when he touched it. Clovis was nowhere — not in Pip’s head, not in the Heart. Pip weighed the Heart in his hand, staring down at it.

“I was too late, Pip,” Missus Orphint said. “I’m sorry.”

“Can we get her back?”

Missus Orphint didn’t answer. She was looking at Oni. “You all right, Oni?”

Oni nodded. She was trembling now. “Is she . . . is El dead?”

“I don’t believe so,” said Missus Orphint. “But it’s hard to know.”

There was a heavy silence, broken by Oni.

“What are we going to do?”

“First,” said Missus Orphint, “Pip will tell me exactly what happened before that Rupture opened in this room. And then we will think about what is best to do next.”

Pip looked at his feet. “He wanted to leave here. He ordered me; he said he was a prince and I had to do what he said.” The anger flared inside Pip again as he spoke. “He said he doesn’t trust witches.”

“He might have some reason for that distrust.” There was a dryness in Missus Orphint’s voice that made Oni glance up at her.

“He shouldn’t have took El.” Pip wiped his face with his sleeve. “She didn’t deserve that. She did nobody any harm, not ever. I wish I never picked this thing up. El was right. I should have thrown it in the river.”

“Throwing it in the river wouldn’t have made any difference,” said Missus Orphint.

“It might have stopped it from taking El.”

“It might. It might not have. You had already touched it, remember.” She sighed. “The first human touch, after all those years . . .”

She took Oni’s and Pip’s hands, as if they were very small children. Somehow Pip didn’t resent the gesture, although normally he would have prickled with insult. “Come downstairs, you two. I’ll make us a hot drink.” She glanced at the ruined coverlet, where Pip had thrown up his dinner. “And then I’ll clean up that mess.”

DESPITE AMIABLE’S REBUKE, GEORGETTE STILL wasn’t sure whether she was awake. She was rarely ill, but laudanum drafts were routinely prescribed by the court physician for any kind of sickness. Over the years the taste of laudanum laced with sherry and honey had become inextricably bound with her memories of the sickroom. She was familiar with the dreams it brought: vivid, strange, absurd visions.

Like the Undercroft.

On the other hand, her recurring dream of her mother and the dragon and the crying little boy had never come with laudanum. And even though that was definitely a dream, it had also been real.

Perhaps, she thought, I will soon wake up in the palace, still betrothed to King Oswald.

The only thing that made her wonder if she wasn’t hallucinating after all was the cold. Her clothes were soaked through and clung to her skin: even in the warm fug of the Undercroft, her teeth were chattering.

The Undercroft was as large as a market square. In fact, it was very like a market, from what she remembered of following Amina on her shopping trips when she was small. Or maybe, she thought, it was more like some huge, chaotic party.

She followed Amiable closely, afraid she would lose her in the crowd. The cat threaded purposefully through a miscellany of stalls where people were dancing, or arguing, or playing complicated games, or simply watching everyone else. Georgette had never seen such a variety of forms and figures.

There were many animals like cats and birds, who were, against everything she knew about their natural inclinations, not only tolerating each other but seemed to be, in one case at least, having tea together. She almost trod on a small terrier-like dog, who told her sharply to watch where she was putting her clumsy feet, and she was sure she saw two foxes playing dice. There were other creatures too: sprites, or people who looked like sprites; a shadowy figure she couldn’t quite see even when she looked at it directly, and which gave her a hollow feeling in her insides.

At the far end of the Undercroft was a tent, a smaller version of the pavilions that were set in the palace grounds for special occasions like tournaments or fencing matches between the nobles. This one was made of bright green silk with yellow stripes. Georgette followed Amiable inside, bending her head to enter, and stopped short, blinking with surprise. Inside, the tent was much bigger than it looked from the outside.

A group of about half a dozen people, who were seated around a table deep in conversation, turned their heads and stared at her in surprise.

“I brought the princess early,” said Amiable, jumping onto a chair. “Plurabella Orphint thought we ought to do that first, to get it out of the way.”

A tiny old woman, so old she was bent almost double, stood up slowly and shuffled down the middle of the tent toward Georgette. Her eyes were two different colors, blue and brown, and her long white hair was piled up into a bun on the back of her head. “A good idea,” she said to Amiable. “Plurabella always thinks ahead.”

She turned to Georgette and studied her, as if she were some exotic specimen. Georgette felt a strange awe, a prickle a little like fear. She curtsied without even thinking, trying to think of the polite thing to say.

“Welcome, child,” said the old woman.

“I’ve never even heard of this place,” Georgette said. She bit her lip, because that wasn’t what she had meant to say at all. “I mean . . . thank you.”

“You shouldn’t have heard of it,” said the old woman. “It isn’t always this crowded, mind. Tonight is the Solstice Carnival, to celebrate Midsummer. Which perhaps is fortunate, since the Witches’ Council is here already.”

She studied the princess again with that clear, unsettling gaze, and despite herself, Georgette blushed. She felt as if she had a smut on her nose.

“My name is Missus Clay,” said the old woman. “We’re no friends of the kingdom, I can tell