Indigo Magic Read Online Free PDF Page A

broke in. ‘Remember, Lily knows much more about magic than any of us. And besides—’
    ‘We have to get rid of it!’ I cried. ‘It’s too dangerous to keep.’
    ‘Too dangerous to lose,’ Leona shot back.
    Gazing past her at the mantelpiece, I noticed my family clock had stopped working. The engraved silver was still beautiful, but the hands were unmoving, the small golden pendulum silent and still.
    My unease was growing.
    ‘Leona—’ I stopped as I caught a whiff of nauseating scent. Sweet, sticky and thick, it coiled around me.
    Lilies.
    I felt strangled. Something had gone wrong. When I closed the door on Lily, that smell had lingered near the doorway. But it shouldn’t be getting stronger.
    I whirled round, and screamed at what I saw. Lily Morganite hovered above the hearthstones.
    Lily Morganite was
inside
my home.
    Scrambling away from her, I spread my wings, hovering in front of the perch that held the indigo bottle. Meteor was on my left, Andalonus and Leona on my right. As one, we held up our wands.
    Lily bent quickly to pick up the cup I’d left next to the ashes. She handled it as if it were the most precious and dangerous thing in the world, and trilled her gloating laugh. ‘How predictable, Zaria. You could not leave well enough alone.’
    ‘How did you get in?’ I panted.
    Lily raised the cup. ‘This powder opened the way. It will be your doom, Zaria – unless, of course, you give the rest of it to me. I know how to dispose of it.’ Light moved in the core of her wand, and she tapped the side of the cup. ‘
Crea viditas
.’ A glass lid appeared, fitting tightly over the rim. I heard Meteor gasp, startled by her magic. Creating anything from nothing used up radia rapidly, but apparently she didn’t care.
    Lily slipped the cup into a pocket of her gown and opened her hand. ‘Give me the bottle, Zaria, and I will tell you what you long to know.’
    I refused to look at the perch behind me, but I couldn’t stop my wings from fluttering. What if the neck of the bottle were visible? I remembered pushing it into the cushions, but I hadn’t taken care to cover it completely.
    ‘
You
do not understand ancient magic.’ Lily floated forward an inch and stopped. Her wings were definitely quivering. Stranger still, her wand was still lit as if she were in the middle of doing a spell. ‘
I
have studied it for a hundred years.’
    A hundred years. So, she was a powerful fairy in her prime. I had wondered about her age; it had been impossible to guess.
    ‘Then tell us what you know.’ I heard a tinge of hope in Meteor’s voice.
    ‘I will tell you this much,’ she said harshly. ‘The hole in your protections is permanent, Zaria. The effects of the powder can never be undone.’ She patted her gown. ‘And the small amount I have is worth more to me than the entire bottle is worth to you.’
    ‘What will you do with it?’ Meteor asked.
    She tilted her head. ‘This is your last chance to bargain, Zaria.’ Her voice was menacing, but her wings beat so unsteadily I expected her to lose her balance and fall into the ashes on the hearth.
    ‘No,’ I answered.
    ‘Then I will leave you,’ she said coldly. ‘For now.’

Chapter Ten
    T HE ROLE OF SCHOLAR IS RARELY GIVEN FULL APPRECIATION . F ORTUNATELY TRUE SCHOLARS FIND GREAT SOLACE IN SEEKING KNOWLEDGE FOR ITS OWN SAKE .
    Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
    THE SECOND LILY vanished, I dug the indigo bottle out of the cushions of my perch. Flying up to the first storey too fast, I almost crashed against the door to my mother’s room before I could open it. My friends were right behind me, and we all hurried inside. Meteor slammed the door.
    I placed the bottle on a shelf. There it rested quietly, but its peril seemed to shout.
    ‘I destroyed the protections on my own hearth with that powder!’ Trying to calm myself, I stared at the picture on the wall, the painting of a forest of trees on Earth. But though the sight normally soothed