Free Lily and the Prisoner of Magic by Holly Webb Page B

quarrelling.’
    Henrietta scrabbled at Lily’s leg to be picked up, and nestled quietly into her shoulder. ‘I didn’t want to ask in front of your sister, but have you enough magic to take us back, without the dragon to help?’ she whispered.
    ‘I hope so,’ Lily muttered back. ‘We’ll see, won’t we?’ She squared her shoulders, trying to summon up all the strength she could. They hadn’t really slept, just dozed a little, resting uncomfortably on the wooden benches. They could probably have gone back to the theatre earlier, but they hadn’t known how long the Queen’s Men might stay at the theatre searching for them. All the excitement of their escape had drained away now, and Lily felt limp and tired. For once, her magic wasn’t bubbling eagerly just under her skin, desperate to be called. She had to search for it, and it felt as tired as she was.
    Perhaps they should just stay a little longer? She could sleep, perhaps, and draw back some strength. But then Henrietta tensed against her arm. ‘I can hear someone coming. They’re whistling!’ she muttered. ‘We need to go now, Lily.’
    Lily dragged the magic up out of her bones and moaned wearily, trying to concentrate on the theatre. Her thoughts seemed to be spiralling round and round inside her head, and she slumped forward.
    Princess Jane gripped her hand more tightly, and Georgie flung her arm around Lily’s waist. ‘It’s all right,’ she gasped. ‘You should have said you were too worn out, idiot. Oh, Lily, I can’t help, or we’ll end up with another wolf, or something else awful!’
    ‘Think of the theatre,’ Henrietta yapped.
    Lily was trying, hauling up memories of their act, and the excitement of the performance; how clever Henrietta was with her tricks; Georgie pretending to be entranced – except that one time when she really had been unconscious… No. Lily shuddered and pushed that thought away quickly. Daniel, then, who had rescued them off the street and let them stay, who was running the whole theatre when he wasn’t that much older than Georgie, who loved magic so much that he was risking everything by hiding a dragon in plain sight across the back of his stage. The cleverness of the illusions, the new Vanishing Cabinet… She was so tired…
    ‘It’s working!’ Georgie squeaked.
    Lily’s eyes jerked open for a second, and she saw the darkness of the summerhouse turn misty and grey around them as they went somewhere else. But she really had no idea where. It felt like that delicious moment just as she fell asleep, where everything faded away. Except that the aching sense that something wasn’t right stayed with her.
    ‘Lily!’
    A sharp pain jerked her awake again, gasping, and Lily shook her head, unsure what had happened. They weren’t in the palace gardens any longer – the faint chirping of waking birds had been replaced by a deep, soft silence, and it was utterly dark. Her ear throbbed, and she could feel a trickle of wetness running down her neck.
    ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Henrietta wailed. ‘But I couldn’t think of any other way.’
    ‘You bit her!’ Georgie sounded horrified.
    ‘I had to. Lily, wake up, where are we?’
    Lily laughed wearily. ‘We’re vanished. We’re nowhere. Where does the audience think Nicholas and Mary go to, when they disappear out of that cabinet?’
    ‘No one knows…’ Georgie said faintly. ‘Just – somewhere.’
    ‘Well, we’re somewhere, then.’
    ‘The air smells bad, here.’ Henrietta wriggled uncomfortably. ‘There isn’t enough of it. Lily, unless you want me to bite you again, and harder, take us back to the theatre. Now.’
    ‘Stupid, reckless children!’ someone shouted suddenly, and there was a sharp flash of light before they landed in a tangled knot in the middle of the stage.
    The dragon was standing over them, his sides heaving and his scales glowing with a burning silvery light. Each scale seemed to sparkle at the edges, like the facets of