Free Lily and the Shining Dragons by Holly Webb Page A

girls had heard in this house. Aunt Clara’s spell usually seemed to muffle everything.
    ‘Nothing!’ Lily gasped, as her cousin snarled at her. ‘I mean, what are you talking about?’
    ‘She didn’t even see me! I was talking to her, and she didn’t know who I was. She just said something about trout.’ Louis was hissing with anger, but his eyes were frightened.
    Lily glanced helplessly at Georgie. What should they say? Aunt Clara had been so determined that Louis wasn’t to know about the magic. ‘She – er – went off to lie down, while the Dysart girls were here visiting. Perhaps she isn’t feeling well?’ she suggested. She wondered how long Aunt Clara would keep talking about fish – Penelope and Cora had obviously included their nickname for her in the spell somehow.
    ‘Them… I might have known.’ Louis looked behind him, and obviously saw one of the servants lurking, for he closed the door quickly. ‘You’re like them, aren’t you? You are, anyway,’ he added, nodding to Lily.
    ‘What are you talking about?’ Lily repeated feebly. He wasn’t supposed to know any of this…
    ‘They’re tainted. Magic-tainted, I’m sure of it. I can’t prove anything, that’s all. And no one would believe me.’
    That awful word again. It wasn’t a taint. Lily seethed silently. But how did he know?
    ‘I can tell,’ he muttered, leaning back against the door, looking lost. ‘They feel strange, and so do you. All wrong.’
    ‘He does have some magic in him then,’ Georgie muttered in her ear. ‘Or he wouldn’t notice.’
    ‘Not very much.’ Lily sniffed. ‘Strange how?’ she demanded.
    He shrugged. ‘Just strange. You’ve got it, haven’t you? Mama’s always trying to see if I have too, it runs in her family.’
    Lily nodded. She still disliked Louis, but he was suddenly a great deal more interesting. ‘She thinks you don’t know anything about it,’ she murmured, watching him carefully.
    Louis grunted in disgust. ‘I’m not stupid.’ He shivered suddenly. ‘I wish I didn’t know. Every morning I wake up thinking it’ll be today when it happens.’
    Lily nodded. She’d felt the same – only she had been desperately wishing for the magic to come, not dreading it. ‘You might like it.’
    Louis stared up at her through his tangled fringe. ‘Are you mad?’ he demanded coldly. ‘I don’t want to be shut up in Fell Hall, even if you do!’
    ‘Fell Hall?’ Lily echoed. Then she gasped, and ran across the room, seizing his hands. ‘Is that the prison? The magicians’ prison? Do you know where it is?’
    Louis pushed her away. ‘Don’t you know anything?’ he snapped, dusting down his sleeves, as though he were exquisitely dressed, and Lily had fatally crumpled a perfect outfit. ‘Of course it isn’t a prison. No one knows where the magicians’ prison is.’ He hesitated, and added miserably, ‘Although I suppose Fell Hall probably feels like one, when you’re there. It’s a school. A reform school, for the children of magicians.’
    ‘Like us…?’ Georgie asked, her voice very small.
    Louis didn’t even bother answering her. ‘I don’t understand why those snakes from next door aren’t there,’ he muttered. ‘If anyone needs reforming, it’s them.’
    ‘Too well-connected,’ Lily pointed out. ‘That’s why they were here. For us to get on their good side.’
    ‘Did you?’ Louis asked suspiciously.
    ‘I don’t think so. They – er—’ Lily wasn’t quite sure what to tell him. It obviously wasn’t safe to mention the plot. ‘They seemed worried that our magic might be as strong as theirs,’ she admitted.
    ‘But it isn’t, because we don’t actually do any. Of course,’ Georgie put in hurriedly.
    Louis snorted.
    ‘We really haven’t done any magic in this house,’ Lily told him. It was only a very little bit of a lie.
    ‘So you could? If you wanted?’ he asked, peering at her, round-eyed.
    ‘If we were doing magic here, our first spell