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

she twisted herself, she couldn’t replicate the pattern of bruises.

Georgette looked suspiciously at the snoring lady-in-waiting, but Lady Agathe wasn’t the kind to play cruel tricks. Even if she were, there hadn’t been enough time for her to return to her chair and fall asleep.

The terror wasn’t fading like it usually did. It was thickening, a heavy dread coiling inside her, threatening to choke her.

It wasn’t a dream. This time, Georgette knew it was real.

OLIBRANDIS SNIFFED AS HE TURNED THE SILVER BOX over and over in his hands. He sniffed continually, so it didn’t mean much, but Pip was on the alert for every tiny sign. “So, you picked this up in the alleys?”

“A quick pocketing, like I said,” said Pip.

Olibrandis, purveyor of antiquities and curiosities, screwed a glass into his eye and closely inspected the jewels. “Amethysts and garnets, my boy, nothing to write home about. But some nice chasing and repoussage work there, on the lid.” He indicated the coat of arms — a dragon embellished with red stones — with a grimy forefinger. “That’s craftsmanship, that is.” He clicked open the lid and stroked the soft velvet interior. “Likely held some gentleman’s buckles.”

“A nobleman,” said Pip. “That’s a dragon, that is.”

“It is indeed.” Olibrandis put the box down on the table and sat back. “That there, in fact, is the coat of arms of the previous royal family, what we don’t name these days, because none of us is supposed to remember.” He took out a large red handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.

“You mean it belonged to a king?”

“More likely his privy counselor or some other such minion.” Seeing the uncomprehending expression on Pip’s face, Olibrandis expanded: “The nobleman who is honored to help the king onto his privy and wipe his arse.”

“Really?” said Pip, his eyes wide.

“When you’re king, even your turds smell like roses.” Olibrandis laughed wheezily at his poor joke and then collapsed into a fit of coughing. He drew out his handkerchief again and spat into it, examining the result carefully before he folded it up and put it back in his pocket. “I’ll give you four marks for it.”

“Four marks! For a box of solid silver and jewels from a king?”

“Take it or leave it, my boy. I’m being too generous; most wouldn’t give you three. Its value is scarce more than silver. The extra mark is for the craftsmanship, but I’m not sure it’s worth my while. The Old Royals aren’t in fashion, but someone might be curious.”

Pip frowned and stared at the box, plucking at his lower lip. He had come to Olibrandis, with whom he had enjoyed a long and mutually profitable relationship, because the dealer was honest, or at least, not as dishonest as the other fences he knew. The box would likely be sold for twenty marks or more in less than an hour. But Pip was hungry.

“Make it six and it’s a deal,” he said.

“Five, then,” said Olibrandis. “And not a farthing more if you break my back.”

Pip watched gloomily as Olibrandis counted out the coins. He and El had argued that morning over selling the box. Her attitude toward it had changed sharply. She now said the box was giving her chills and she didn’t want it in the room.

“It’s no use just going to old Ollie,” said Pip. “It’s a treasure, remember?”

“It’s evil, that’s what it is.” El flicked a glance at the box and shivered. “It’s bad luck.”

Pip picked it up and stroked the soft silver lid with his finger. He didn’t want to sell it. He couldn’t rid himself of the conviction that this box would change their fortunes. “I told you, it’s precious. It’s important, El.”

“Sell the box and throw that horrible black thing inside away.” El was speaking so passionately that she was breathless. “I feel like . . . like it’s watching me.”

“So the one chance we get to better ourselves, we throw it away? What about our fortune?”

“Oh, Pip.” El took his hand and held it tight. “There’s never going to be no fortune for us. Don’t you understand? It’s just a daydream, Pip. A lovely daydream. But you can’t eat dreams. And I’m so hungry I feel dizzy.”

So Pip had taken the Heart out of the box — he thought of it as the Heart, although he still wasn’t really sure what it was — and wrapped it in a piece of old cloth. He’d hidden it inside his breeches, where no nimble fingers could find it.

Touching it made him feel a little sick, as if he were on top of a tall building. El was right: it felt like bad luck. He could feel it pushing into his hips as he sat in front of Olibrandis, even though it scarcely weighed anything at all.

He left Olibrandis’s shop the same way he had come in, by the back entrance, shouldering past piles of oddments — rusting chains, buckets of nails, boxes of old bottles marked poison — into the tiny alley behind. Five marks was still a decent amount: it was a month’s worth of dinners, and maybe a shawl for El and a jacket for him. Two days ago he would have been cock-a-hoop, but he couldn’t get past his dragging disappointment.

He kicked at some rubbish, deciding to go to the Mascule Bridge and throw the Heart into the river there. The Mascule Bridge was popular for suicides; it seemed like an appropriate place to drown the hope that had surged inside him so powerfully.

Shortly after Pip left his shop, Olibrandis put the newly polished box in his window, with a tag indicating that this appealing silver buckle casket could be purchased by any person who had the necessary twenty-five marks. An hour after that, a man dressed entirely in black paused thoughtfully outside the shop, his attention arrested, and peered through the grimy panes. He glanced up and down the street, and then, as silently as a rat wearing velvet