Read Online Lily by Holly Webb - Free Book Online Page A

I?’
    ‘Have you learned any more of them?’ Lily asked, handing her back the piece of paper.
    ‘Yes… This one. And this. About half the list, I think. But only to study. They’re all such difficult ones. They need a lot of magic, and training, and even then it’s a knack, I think. I haven’t cast any of the others, I’m not even ready to try.’ For the first time, Georgie looked relieved that she wasn’t as good at magic as everyone wanted. ‘Lily, Mama is teaching me to kill people,’ she said flatly. And then she collapsed into the armchair, looking sick. ‘I don’t want to kill people… Who would?’ She huddled back into the chair, small and lost against the cushions.
    ‘Your mother, clearly,’ Henrietta muttered, sniffing at the list, and sneezing as though it were peppery. ‘Ugh…’
    ‘I think it’s one person.’ Lily pointed to another spell. ‘Look what she’s written underneath this one. Too hard to reach her. These are all designed for one person in particular.’
    Georgie frowned, and sat up. ‘Is this how they did away with Lucy and Prudence and the others? Mama’s trying to get me to learn spells to get rid of myself? That doesn’t make sense.’
    Lily shook her head. ‘No. Think about it. Her . The one person Mama can’t stand. The one who destroyed everything for us.’
    Henrietta gave a sharp, excited little yap. ‘Ah! I understand now. The queen, yes?’
    Lily nodded, staring into her sister’s troubled eyes. ‘She’s training you to assassinate Queen Sophia.’

T he two girls and the dog sat curled up together in front of the dying library fire, staring into the greying coals, and trying to make sense of what they had seen.
    ‘That’s what it’s all about?’ Georgie muttered. ‘Getting rid of the queen?’
    ‘It fits.’ Lily nodded. ‘It fits with the stories Mama was always telling you, the ones you passed on to me. That Queen Sophia is a terrible tyrant, and we have to put the magicians back in power again. The easiest way to bring the magic back would be to kill her, wouldn’t it? She’s the one forbidding magic, because she was so upset about her father’s death.’
    ‘I suppose so.’ Georgie shrugged wearily. ‘Perhaps it isn’t such a bad thing. She did have Father put in prison, you know.’
    ‘Maybe he deserved it,’ Lily said in a small voice, ‘if he was plotting to assassinate the queen too. The Queen’s Men just got in first…’
    Georgie shook her head. ‘No. That would be treason. I don’t think they put you in prison for treason, Lily, they just hang you. He might have been in on Mama’s plot, but he can’t have been discovered. They would never have left Mama free either, would they? Or us. They would have put us all in prison. Regicides. That’s what they call people who kill kings and queens.’
    Lily nodded, and found herself holding Georgie’s hand. Before Mama had started giving Georgie quite so many lessons, Lily’s favourite thing of all had been to play with her sister. It was hard to remember, now that Georgie was so quiet and listless, but she had invented the most amazing games. Make-believe games. And their favourite had always been the same. They didn’t play it often – partly so as not to spoil it, but mostly because they’d known it would be very unfortunate to be caught. They would find a cupboard – the linen cupboard in the old housekeeper’s room was particularly good – and take turns to shut each other inside, or almost.
    Actually, Lily refused to let Georgie shut the door completely as she was afraid of the dark, and Georgie refused to let Lily shut it because she didn’t trust her not to wander off and forget about her. They would borrow a cup of water, and a crust of bread from Martha in the kitchen, and whoever was being the cruel jailer would take great delight in describing the enormous rats she had seen recently or the lingering death of the prisoner in the next cell.
    It was only such a good