Shadow Magic (23 page)

The man stood up straight. He was thin and tall and, though youngish, had already lost much of his hair. His wispy red locks were combed across his bald pate but had the unfortunate tendency to fall over his face. He pushed a few long strands aside. “Hmm. I tell you what: it’s early, so I’ll make you a deal. Because I like your faces.” He gestured to Thorn. “Though yours, not so much. Six, for all three. Nonrefundable.”

Lily grimaced and held her hand out to Thorn. “Can you lend me some money?”

“You didn’t bring any?”

“I never carry money. I don’t need to. Everything’s just given to me.” Lily saw the disapproving look in Thorn’s eye. “Remember, I do actually own everything in Gehenna.”

K’leef cleared his throat. “Uh, Thorn…”

Thorn frowned. “What, you ain’t got none, neither? How about them rings of yours? They’ll be worth a few sovereigns each.”

“First, I’m not wearing any rings—those were all just for show when I arrived here,” said K’leef, waggling his bare fingers. “And second, those rings are family heirlooms. I would never sell them. I’d rather starve. It’s a matter of—”

“
Honor.
I know. I just don’t believe it,” Thorn grumbled. But he handed over his silver crown. “I want change for that.”

Max pocketed it with a broad grin and gave Thorn his fourteen pennies. Which Thorn double-checked.

“Come, my friends, come!” Max lifted the curtain suspended between two wagons. “Prepare to be amazed and see creatures so rare, so marvelous, that your lives will never be the same again. I, Maximilian Milo, have traveled into the very depths of the Shardlands to capture some of these beasts. Explored places no civilized man has even been and lived among cannibal tribes who now, if I may be so immodest, worship me as their god!” He took a few steps ahead. “Maggie, we’ve got some guests!”

Cages and pens and wagons lay in a messy series of rows among tents and campfires. A girl a few years younger than Lily ran up to Max. She had the same skinny build and her hair was a pale dirty blond. Her patchwork dress was enlivened by a coin-studded belt. She made a curtsey. “Hello, fair visitors. Prepare yourselves for an…an…”

“Amazing experience?” prompted Max.

“Yes. And everything else, too.”

Max led them to the first animal. “Behold, the Pegasus!”

Lily looked at the animal. It was a young foal. A good beast, light gray with white socks, but something was not quite right about it. “Pegasus, right?”

“Indeed. A Pegasus.”

“It doesn’t have any wings.”

Max nodded thoughtfully. “Well spotted. That’s because it’s young. The wings haven’t grown in yet. Come back next year, maybe two, and then you’ll see a beautiful pair, dozens of feet long. Honestly.”

Thorn muttered something as they moved on toward the cages.

Max put his finger to his lip. “Now, be careful. This next creature is one of the most feared predators of the underworld. I was a personal friend to the last Lord Shadow, may the Six Princes guard his soul, and when we were young men full of hot blood and a lust for adventure, we took a journey into the Twilight. To the very gates of the lands of the dead.”

“Really?” said Lily. “How come my father never—”

Thorn clamped his hand over her mouth. “Never visited you before? That’s what she was about to say.”

Max looked hard at her. “And who’s her father?”

“Oh, the privy cleaner.”

Privy cleaner?
Lily was speechless. How dare he? A privy cleaner!

Thorn glared at her. “Yes. He’s a privy cleaner, and you’re just his daughter and a servant like me, aren’t you?”

Lily nodded slowly. She’d get Thorn back for that later.

There was a growl from within the dark cage. A large lump of brown shifted.

Max stepped back. “Not too near, mind! I don’t want you losing a hand or anything! Not suitable for children under five!”

Maggie stepped between them. “Behold, the utterly fero…fero…”

“Ferocious,” finished Max.

“Behold that word wot my dad said and the unique and one and only single-headed Cerberus!”

A huge wolfish dog got up off its bed of hay and sniffed the bars.

“Single-headed?” snapped Thorn. “I thought Cerberus had…more?”

“You’re referring to the
common
three-headed Cerberus. Every zoo from here to Silver Sea has one of those,” said Max. “This is the extraordinarily rare single-headed version.”

The dog continued its lazy search for a treat.

K’leef pointed to another animal farther along. “And what’s that? A hornless unicorn?”

Max shook his head. “Don’t be daft. That’s just a donkey.”

“I want my money back,” said Thorn.

T
horn huffed loudly. “Come on, let’s go. Anything’s better than this rubbish.”

“I’ll be staying around here for a while,” said Lily. “They’ve got fortune-tellers, music, and stories. It’ll be fun.”

“But Wade told me there’s an archery stall. If you score three bull’s-eyes, you win a whole cake.” Thorn grinned. “I could get us a few each.”

Lily could see the longing in his eyes. “Go ahead. I’ll be fine. I am in disguise, remember?”

“I’ll stay with her, Thorn,” said K’leef. “Some of these roaming folk would have come up from the Sultanate. They’ll have news from home.”

Thorn nudged him. “And maybe they could help you sneak back south, right?”

“I am a son of House Djinn. We do not sneak off anywhere. It’s a matter of—”

“By the Six, we know,” interrupted Thorn. “You two stick together, all right?”

Lily gave him a push. “Just leave.”

And with that Thorn ran off to explore the rest of the fair.

K’leef and Lily went around the animals once more. K’leef took an apple from his cloak pocket and fed it to the foal. “This is a good colt.”

One of the roaming folk wandered over with a small sack of oats. He nodded at them and tipped the oats into a bucket. The colt started eating, his ears twitching with enthusiasm.

“This is a fire breed, isn’t it?” asked K’leef.

The roaming man stroked the foal’s neck. “From the desert of the Sultanate. As fast as falcons, or so they say.”

K’leef’s smile was the deepest and brightest Lily had ever seen. It was as if he’d not been truly happy until this moment. “They are indeed. Such an animal doesn’t need wings to be magical.”

They moved to the next cage, the one containing the “Cerberus.” “You hungry, boy?” The dog drooled as the man showed it a gristly bone. Lily noticed that the first two fingers of the man’s left hand were missing. Had his pet snapped those off?

The man unlocked the cage and took hold of the dog’s collar. “Come and get it.”

The beast snarled as it saw Lily, peeling back its black lips and revealing a row of long, dagger-tipped fangs.

The roaming man whistled, a sound as sharp as an arrow. The dog twitched his ears, then sank down on his haunches. The man scratched under its slobbery chin. “He’s just scared of you, m’lady.”

“I’m not a lady, I’m just…erm, the privy cleaner’s daughter.”

“If you say so, miss.” His green eyes narrowed, and Lily wasn’t sure he believed her.

“Why is he scared of me?” That sounded…unlikely.

“You’re from Castle Gloom,” the gypsy continued. “You’ve got the wrong smell.”

“What smell is that?”

“You smell of stones and bones, miss.” The roaming man met her gaze. “Lifeless things.”

Did he know who she was? She lowered her gaze. “Is that…safe?” The dog looked a lot bigger now that he was out of the cage.

The man shook the dog’s cheeks, and the big beast rolled over. Lily laughed. Custard used to do the same.

K’leef seemed fascinated by the dog. After a nod from the roaming man, he too stroked the animal’s brown fur. The beast gave a rumble of pleasure.

Lily decided to leave them and wandered toward the fire.

Maggie stirred the embers to bring more life to the flames as Max stuffed a thick wad of tobacco into his pipe. “Should never have gone into the monster business. Total mug’s game.”

“But you don’t have any monsters,” said Lily.

Max picked up a burning twig and lit the pipe. “Not now I don’t, not now.” He flapped his hand in the air. “The Pegasus flew off the first week. How was I to know you have to clip its wings every month?”

“What about the three-headed dog? Did you have one of those?”

Max sighed deeply. “He ate the hydra. How that serpent got out of the cage I’ll never know, but you wouldn’t believe the noise the two of them made. By the time I got there, the hydra was half gobbled up. I tell you, it’s not a sight you forget. I tried to get the dog off, but it was no good. Stupid mutt got food poisoning and was dead by morning.”

“That’s a shame. Couldn’t you get any more?”

“How? Take a trip to the Shardlands? Not likely.” Max glanced at her. “From the castle, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the earl? Is he around?”

“Pandemonium Shadow?” Lily lowered her head. “I’ve seen him. Why?”

“I’ve some business to discuss with him.”

“What sort of business?” Why would her uncle be dealing with this man?

Max winked. “See that chest over there?”

“Yes.”

He dragged it over and kicked the lid open. “What do you think?”

Cheap trinkets. Some bracelets. A couple of nice necklaces and pendants. A few masks probably from earlier masquerades, some of them just broken pieces. Nothing special. “Not a lot, to be honest.”

“Exactly, exactly. Sold a box just like this to the earl last year for…guess how much.”

“Ten crowns?” Even that was being way too generous.

“A hundred.
Sovereigns
.” Max laughed. “Just junk I got off a Shardland nomad. Told him they were magical. That’s how I bought the menagerie in the first place.”

Now Lily knew why the name Maximilian Milo had sounded familiar. Pan and Father had had a big argument over that box. About all the money Pan had wasted on rubbish.

Max looked into the fire, and his eyes were gold with the flame light. “He’s desperate for magic. This box here’ll fetch me another hundred at
least
. And you know what they say about a fool and his gold. Well, that goes double for Pan Shadow.”

“Do you always gossip like this?” asked Lily, feeling bile rise in her throat.

“I don’t mean any harm, girl.” Max gestured with his cup. “Everyone knows the old earl isn’t the man he used to be. He likes his drink, if you know what I mean.”

“Stop talking about him like that! He’s sick!”

“Sure he is. It’s called a hangover.”

“Shut your mouth! Don’t you dare talk about him like that!” Lily kicked the fire and stormed off.

She should tell Max exactly who she was. Tell him and get some guards to punish him.

For what? For telling the truth?

“What’s going on?” K’leef had run over. “Lily, are you all right?”

Lily glared back at the menagerie. “That Max is an idiot and he doesn’t know anything. He called Uncle Pan a drunken fool.”

K’leef stopped. “So?”

She pushed K’leef. “That’s what you think, too, isn’t it?”

“That’s what everyone thinks, Lily.” He reached for her but she pulled back. “He’s a laughingstock from here to the Coral Isles. If he had any honor, he would—”

“Will you shut up about your stupid honor!” She didn’t want to hear any more. Tears blurred her eyes as she turned and ran.

“Lily!”

She kept going, stumbling away from the fair. She had to get away from them all.

Uncle Pan
was
a drunken fool. He’d wasted fortunes on wild schemes all his life. Fake treasure was just a part of it. He always claimed that sooner or later he’d find something, something magical from the time of the Six Princes, but he never did.

Eventually she stopped, beyond the edge of the fair. She saw a line of trees up ahead, and beyond them, an empty road.

What if she kept walking?

What if I just left and never looked back?

It seemed like the answer to all her problems. No Gabriel. No responsibilities. No rules anymore.

A life of total freedom. Who wouldn’t want that?

But to
abandon Castle Gloom?

She might as well cut out her own heart. She’d never leave her home. Her blood was the blackest of all. Others saw cold dark stone, but they hadn’t heard the laughter that echoed in its halls during feast days. They saw grim gargoyles, but they’d never spent their summers climbing them. The view from the tower roofs was breathtaking. On a clear day, you could see all the way to the Three Princes, the highest peaks in the country.

Lily would never move out of Castle Gloom. Somehow, she had to outwit the Solars.

She lifted the hem of her skirt out of the mud and started marching along a line of trees toward the big tent. A cluster of bats swooped overhead and disappeared among the branches.

A twig snapped. Lily stopped and peered into the brush. “Who’s there?” she asked the darkness.

Probably some village child dressed as a ghost and waiting to jump out and scare her. Still, she didn’t like it. “This isn’t funny, you know!”

The wind blew through the trees, and the leaves rustled in alarm.