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

was being taken to a place full of people with very good reasons to hate him. Neither he nor Harpin resisted when Amina shook their magical shackles and told them to follow her quick smart. They just looked resigned.

Now that El was back, Pip didn’t feel angry with Clovis anymore. All that rage had been replaced with an uncomfortable sense of being responsible. He didn’t like that very much; he wasn’t used to it.

Well, he had always felt a responsibility for El, but that was different. There had only ever been El and him. Now there was Clovis and him, and Clovis was inside his head. Sometimes it was a bit difficult to tell which were his thoughts and which belonged to Clovis.

Clovis’s inconsequential chitchat ceased abruptly the moment they entered the Undercroft. Pip knew why at once: he could feel Clovis’s fear as if it were his own.

As far as Clovis was concerned, this was his worst nightmare. They were walking through a pit full of witches. If Clovis had been a puppy, he would be huddling into Pip’s ankles, shaking all over.

Nobody will hurt you here, Pip said, hoping it was true. I won’t let them. Fair’s fair. You kept your promise.

Witches are cruel, said Clovis. They say they’re going to help you and then . . .

The memory tore through Pip’s mind like sudden fire. A woman, not very old, brown-haired, quite plump. She looked a little like a younger version of their Missus Pledge. She was smiling, holding out a ripe apple. He was very hungry. He reached out for the apple, heard his voice thanking the kind lady.

And then, a merciless grip, and terrible pain. A knife plunging into his chest, blood splashing on his face, on her face, screams filling his ears that he knew were his own screams . . .

So Old Missus Pledge had lied. She hadn’t found Clovis after he had been killed by the executioners. She had killed him herself.

No wonder he’s frightened of witches, Pip thought. Imagine being able to remember your own death. And dying like that . . .

“You all right, Pip?” El was pulling at his elbow. “You going to be sick? You’ve gone all green.”

Pip swallowed, trying to contain his nausea. “I’m all right,” he said gruffly.

“We better catch up. You stopped, just like that, and . . .”

He shrugged El off, quickening his pace. “I said I’m all right.”

He began dimly to perceive what it meant that Clovis had decided to trust him. If the story that Amina had told them was true, Clovis’s father had decided to devour his son’s soul. His own father. And then Old Missus Pledge had cut out his heart. While he was still alive. That same Heart that Pip still carried, almost forgotten, in his pocket.

If Pip let Clovis down too, it would be a disaster. And not just for Clovis and Pip, but for everyone else as well.

Most witches are good people, Pip said to Clovis as he hurried after Amina. Oni’s not like that. You know that, you must know that. You stopped the assassin from hurting her.

Silence.

Specters are worse than witches. Much worse.

More silence. A growing feeling of confusion, sadness, fear.

At last Clovis spoke. Yes. No. I don’t know.

I won’t let them hurt you, said Pip again. Even if they want to. To his surprise, this time he meant it. He added, as an afterthought, They won’t want to, though. I’m sure.

He felt, rather than heard, Clovis’s response: a little leap of relief. A secret, troubled part of Pip’s mind whispered that perhaps he was being a little dishonest, that maybe the witches wouldn’t care about Clovis. And after all, he and Clovis weren’t really friends. He really didn’t want Clovis to be hurt, but he still wasn’t sure if he actually liked him.

KING OSWALD — OR, MORE ACCURATELY, KING Rudolph — was an old hand at court politics. As his valet clipped his nails after morning chapel, he sniffed the air in the palace. He could tell by the itch in his bones that something was wrong. He had noticed that the princess was absent from her usual pew in the service. At first he had accepted the explanation that she had been taken ill, but now he was beginning to wonder. Had the girl absconded? Of course nobody would dare to tell him if she had.

Patience, he said to himself. Patience . . .

Patience was his chief — perhaps his only — virtue. The alliance with Clarel was the first major step in a strategy he had been working on for fifty years. Ever since the Specters had lost power across Continentia and all the quarreling kingdoms had banded together to declare war on Awemt, Oswald-Rudolph had been quietly rebuilding alliances. He had rewritten histories and silenced the witches. He had bided his time. And now everybody had forgotten about the Specters, or thought that they were just a legend. The time was ripe.

In less than a year, King Oswald would be emperor of Continentia. He might even adopt his old name again: Emperor Rudolph. It had a nice ring. And a new age would dawn. An age of endless power . . .

The servant finished filing his nails and bowed. Oswald waved a hand to dismiss him, still pondering deeply. He needed that princess. She had the right bloodlines. Axel was a buffoon, but a little vulgar breeding was needed now and then to bring strength to the line; otherwise it became progressively weaker and the blood magic failed.

Through her father, Georgette was the only link left to the line of King Odo of Clarel. Specter blood on both sides would ensure that the magic took properly. There could be no more failed vessels. Every one of his sons so far had died soon after he began the procedure. He needed stronger children.

The princess was, of course, terrified of him, but that didn’t bother Oswald. Had she run