Lily and the Prisoner of Magic Read Free

need to hide, in case anyone from the village sees us.’
    ‘Will they be chasing us? From Fell Hall?’ Elizabeth pulled Lottie close to her worriedly.
    Lily shook her head. ‘We’ve come quite a long way already. And last we saw of it, Fell Hall was collapsing, after the dragons came up out of the caverns. But we don’t want to be seen anyway. We’re still – well, outlaws, I suppose. And there aren’t places to hide, here in the wood, so we’ll have to do it by magic.’
    Everyone stared back at her.
    ‘What, a spell?’ one of the boys said doubtfully at last.
    Lily nodded. ‘Why not? Lottie managed a spell early this morning.’
    Lottie nodded importantly. ‘Little birds flew round me! It was lovely. I want to do a spell, Lily!’
    Lily looked around hopefully at the rest of the children. ‘Does it feel like you shouldn’t?’
    While the children had been shut up at Fell Hall, the staff had fed them old, half-dead spells, designed to keep their own magic squashed deep down. Everyone had been taught that magic was wrong and shameful. When Lily and Georgie had first been taken there, they’d hoped to find other children like themselves, but instead the pupils had been bewitched into hating their own magical blood.
    The boy wrinkled his nose and flexed his fingers. His feet twitched, and then he looked up at Lily, smiling hopefully. ‘Actually, I’d like to,’ he admitted. ‘I never understood what they’d been doing to us. It feels like we’ve been set free. Not just from that place. Inside me as well, somehow.’
    Mary raised a hand shyly. She was one of the children who’d been abandoned at Fell Hall as a baby, put into a strange stone cradle in the wall and left, because someone thought she was a witch baby.
    ‘I don’t feel that much different,’ she said, sounding sorry. ‘Less, um, misty. But I don’t think I could do a spell. I never did think I could.’
    Henrietta padded over to her and rubbed her soft, wrinkly face against Mary’s bare leg. ‘I don’t think you’ve got any magic in you,’ she told Mary regretfully. ‘Do you mind very much?’
    Mary swallowed in a gulp, and sat down on the twig-scattered earth next to the dog. ‘Not all that much… But what do I do now?’
    Lily crouched next to her. ‘None of us knows what we’re going to do. The dragon says he’ll carry us to the theatre, but after that – we don’t know. But it’s better to be anywhere else than at Fell Hall, isn’t it?’
    ‘You won’t leave me behind because I can’t do it?’ Mary whispered.
    The dragon snorted furiously, and Mary shrank back against Lily, trembling.
    ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you, dear one. I am angry, but not with you.’ His tail thrashed from side to side among the trees, shaking leaves down on their heads. ‘How has everything gone so wrong, since we slept?’ He lowered his massive head towards Lily and Mary. ‘You will never be left behind.’ Then he drew himself up, curling his forelegs protectively around Princess Jane and nudging Peter, who was huddled on his back still. ‘Those of you who feel you do not have the magic in you, come and sit with me.’ The growl had softened back to a velvety purr. ‘We shall watch. Delicious magic; it will be a treat.’
    About fifteen of the children hurriedly separated themselves from the rest, mostly looking relieved. The dragon purred at them in welcome, wrapping his tail around his forelegs like a bench, and murmuring, ‘Sit, dear ones. Sit.’
    ‘Are we going to make a spell now? A proper spell?’ Lottie asked eagerly, dancing up and down and pulling on Lily’s arm. ‘Please tell me how!’
    ‘I don’t really know how,’ Lily said, glancing anxiously at Georgie and Henrietta. ‘It just happens. Um. I suppose if we’re doing a spell together, we all ought to think about the same things.’
    ‘Hold hands,’ Henrietta pointed out, scurrying busily around between their feet.
    ‘Oh! Yes.’ Lily caught Lottie’s