The Threads of Magic, Alison Croggon [uplifting novels txt] 📗

the usual midsummer festivities, began to crowd along the blocked streets. When they were stopped, they demanded to know why they were being prevented from entering the Weavers’ Quarter. Criers announced that it was because the Eradians had used witchcraft to kidnap Princess Georgette.

It didn’t go down well. Most people scoffed openly. One party of soldiers was pelted with eggs by disappointed citizens.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people were being delivered to the Office for Witchcraft Extermination. There were far too many to be held in the dungeons, and harassed officials were forced to let many of them go. A crowd began to gather outside Clarel Palace, shouting for the king to stop the raids. Soldiers tried to turn them away, but the crowd kept swelling.

The cardinal stood at his window and watched the rabble, clouds gathering on his brow. The palace might be suspicious of the Weavers’ Quarter, but everyone in Clarel knew the Eradians. They worked with them, or they were their neighbors. And everyone wanted to get jobs with the Weavers’ Guild because they paid on time, and much more generously than the nobles.

If Lamir had remembered that today was the Midsummer Festival, he might have delayed these raids. But he hadn’t even thought about it, because it was an event attended only by the city’s commoners. No nobles celebrated Midsummer Day, and therefore it was of no importance. He had forgotten, if he ever knew, that for most ordinary people in Clarel, the Midsummer Festival in the Weavers’ Quarter was the high point of the year.

The mood in the city was turning ugly.

The cardinal scratched his chin, pondering. Perhaps, after all, this unrest could be turned to his own advantage. Maybe the king could be toppled off his throne without the cardinal having to lift a finger.

GEORGETTE LIKED TO THINK THAT SHE WASN’T conceited. For years she had despised her father’s touchy pride, and she had vowed that when she was queen, she would never be like him. It was humbling to discover that she was, after all, not above the vice of vanity.

For years, ever since she had left the Old Palace, she had been treated as a princess, which meant that, for good and ill, she was always the center of attention. When she walked through the palace, everyone, even the cardinal, bowed or curtsied. If she spoke, people listened (or at least, they pretended to). She had always held a secret contempt for court protocols, but now that nobody observed them, she felt offended.

She woke up after retreating in the small hours, limp with exhaustion, to the dormitory that extended from the back of the council pavilion. She was almost certain that the tent expanded as more people entered it, but if it did, she never saw the transitions. Sibelius was still fast asleep, snoring under a purple coverlet. After Missus Pledge’s will had been decoded, he had gone into some kind of daze, and Missus Clay had given him a warm drink that Georgette was sure contained some kind of sleeping potion. In any case, he had gone straight to bed and hadn’t stirred since.

According to Georgette’s pocket watch, it was a quarter past eleven. In the Undercroft, she had no way of telling whether it was day or night, and she seemed to have lost her sense of time. She slipped out of the dormitory into the main room of the tent to find that it was a hive of activity.

She then discovered that nobody can ignore people as well as witches. They can ignore people so hard that it’s like they’re invisible. (In extreme cases, they actually do become invisible, but that’s another issue.) She sat on a chair at the edge of the tent and unrolled the rags from her hair, keeping her ears open. She thought of waking up Sibelius just to have someone to talk to, and then decided that would be too humiliating. She was a princess; she didn’t need company.

Being unimportant was a novel sensation. For one thing, it was really dull. Nobody had even thanked her for being right about Sibelius d’Artan and tracking down the spell. When she’d asked Amiable what was happening, Amiable had simply answered that it was nothing that concerned princesses and strolled away. Even Helios, the nicest person on the Witches’ Council, was too busy running around organizing people to take much notice of her. He said vaguely that there had been raids and that people had been injured and at least one person had been killed.

“Where?” asked Georgette.

“The Weavers’ Quarter, but it’s spreading. It’s going to be civil war out there . . .”

Georgette’s ears pricked up. “Maybe I can help,” she said. “I mean . . .”

“I think the most important thing you can do is to remain here, where the Specters can’t find you,” said Helios. “Excuse me.” He hurried off, and Georgette watched him talking animatedly to a dog that had entered the tent. A dog was more important than she was?

She was ashamed of that thought, but it didn’t stop her from thinking it.

So, there was some kind of rebellion happening in the city of Clarel? She sat on a stool, out of the way, and kept her ears open as strangers arrived and gave reports.

She had one single, overwhelming conviction: she, Princess Georgette, ought to be leading any rebellion. This was her chance to actually take over the palace and become queen in her own right. The people would follow her for certain: they were always excited to see her when she made public appearances. Her grandfather had led a revolt that deposed the Old Royals. Why couldn’t she do the same thing?

When Missus Clay plumped down at the central table to grab a quick bite of bread and honey, Georgette took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and politely asked if she could sit next to her. Missus Clay licked a drip of honey from her hand. “If you wish,