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

end of the room was an enormous bed with red-and-gold curtains of heavy brocade. The room was so big it made the bed look small.

The assassin wasn’t the only person there. Sitting against the opposite wall was El, on a chair with legs so spindly that they looked as if they would snap under the slightest pressure. Her hair was elaborately styled in ringlets, and she was wearing the same dress that Princess Georgette had worn on the day she came to Amina’s place.

“Pip!” she said, her face shining. “Are you come to rescue me?”

“I think so,” said Pip. “But who are all these people?”

“This is Heironomo Blaise,” said El chattily, gesturing toward the assassin. “He’s quite nice, really — you wouldn’t have thought so, would you? And that’s Harpin Shtum.” She waved her hand at a man dressed in a green velvet jacket with soiled lace at the cuffs, who bowed. Pip recognized him as a card sharp he had seen around the Crosseyes. “I don’t know who the other person is. He just turned up when you did.”

Pip stared at the last person, a small, fair-haired boy. He was too thin, and under his eyes were huge shadows. He was dressed all in gold, from head to foot: golden jacket, golden waistcoat, golden breeches, golden buckles on his golden shoes. All the glitter somehow made him look smaller than he really was.

The boy was looking at Pip with a mixture of uncertainty and hauteur, his chin high. “Do you like my room?” he said. “I made it just for you.”

Clovis. Pip swallowed, trying to gather his thoughts. “You what?”

“It’s much nicer here now,” said El. “Before it was . . .” She trailed off, frowning. “How odd!” she said. “I can’t remember. It’s like we only just got here and also as if we’ve been here all the time having a party. Maybe it was always like this.”

“No, it wasn’t,” said Harpin Shtum. “Floating around in the dark, and all that sobbing . . .”

“Oh yes, that was so frightening! But it’s lovely now.” El looked at Clovis. “Did you make my dress? It’s so pretty.”

“This is my eternal kingdom,” said Clovis grandly. “My word is law.”

Pip glanced at the walls of the room. He was sure they were moving, like sheets rippling in a slight breeze. Everything seemed somehow not quite right: the plums were too purple, the gold too bright. He had a hollow feeling in his chest, as if he were in the middle of a dream that at any moment might turn nasty.

“You just made this up?”

“It’s for my friends,” said Clovis. “See how happy your sister is?”

“You promised you would take us back,” said Pip. “I want to go home. Don’t you, El?”

El smiled sunnily at him. “It’s so nice here, Pip,” she said. “Much nicer than Clarel.”

“See?” said Clovis. “Why would you want to go back there? It’s much better here.”

Pip ignored the prince. “With an assassin?” He flung out his arm, his voice high with incredulity. “An actual assassin is in this room, and you want to stay here? I bet you my right hand that this is the man who tried to capture Oni.”

The assassin smiled wolfishly.

“I told you, Pip, he’s quite nice really,” said El.

“He’s nice?”

“He was an orphan like us, Pip. He didn’t have a choice.”

“But you and me, we didn’t become assassins.”

“We didn’t get put in the orphanage. That’s what the orphanages are for, so the cardinal can get assassins. He’d whip them if they didn’t obey. Sometimes they were killed.”

Heironomo started and, to Pip’s surprise, blushed. Pip looked at him properly for the first time and realized that the assassin wasn’t much older than El was.

“I didn’t tell you that,” the assassin said.

“Yes, you did,” said El, and went back to admiring her dress.

El didn’t seem like El. There was something odd about her eyes, as if she wasn’t really focusing on anything, as if she wasn’t quite there. Pip strode forward and shook her shoulders. “El, wake up. We got to get out of here. That’s the only thing that’s important right now.”

“But your sister doesn’t want to leave,” said Clovis, with a little smile of triumph.

“Yes, she does,” said Pip belligerently.

El looked up into Pip’s eyes and blinked.

“Yes, I do want to go home. Oni’s not here. And I miss our place.” She smoothed out the lace on her sleeves. “I know this dress is really pretty, and it was really nice of you to make it for me, but maybe it’s time to go now.”

The walls began to shake. Harpin, looking worried, plucked at Pip’s sleeve. “Maybe, young sir, you shouldn’t . . .”

“Clovis,” said Pip, looking him right in the eye. “You promised. Were you planning to be a dirty traitor all along?”

Clovis went white. “You dare . . .”

“You said you wanted to be friends. No wonder people hate the royals. Whether you’re a prince or not, you’re just a low-bellied cockroach if you break your word.”

Pip just had time to see Clovis’s lip wobble before all the candles went dark. He heard El cry out in terror and the assassin cursing, but then their voices were drowned in a roaring that grew louder and louder. Above the roar, he could hear Clovis’s voice shrieking with rage. “I hate you!” he shouted. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

Inside Pip something snapped. He lost his temper, but not in the way he usually did. Perhaps as a reaction to Clovis’s loss of control, he felt himself become cold and calm. And absolutely furious.

“Yes, you hate everybody,” he said. He didn’t shout; he didn’t even know if Clovis could hear him. “You hate everybody and everything. And you know why? Because you’re a coward.”

The roaring stopped with disconcerting suddenness, leaving a silence so heavy Pip felt as if his ears were stuffed with wool.

“I’m not a coward,” said Clovis.

“Yes, you are.” Pip remembered what Oni had said before he went