Goodly and Grave in a Case of Bad Magic. Justine Windsor

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Goodly and Grave in a Case of Bad Magic - Justine  Windsor


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      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018

      Published in this ebook edition in 2018

      HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

      HarperCollins Publishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

      The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Text copyright © Justine Windsor 2018

      Illustrations copyright © Becka Moor 2018

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

      Justine Windsor and Becka Moor assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively.

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008183592

      Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008183608

      Version: 2018-06-07

       For Chas ’n’ Pheebs

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

      Chapter One: A Ball of Magic

      Chapter Two: The Boy in the Alley

       Chapter Seven: The War of the Maids

       Chapter Eight: Lord Grave’s Exploding Great-grandmother

       Chapter Nine: Gormless Grave

       Chapter Ten: Rogue Animation

       Chapter Eleven: Lucy Tests Her Theory

       Chapter Twelve: A Note From Beyond the Grave

       Chapter Thirteen: Demons and Doors

       Chapter Fourteen: Lord Grave No More

       Chapter Fifteen: The Wall of Masks

       Chapter Sixteen: Pawprints and Fingerprints

       Chapter Seventeen: Valentina’s Chits

       Chapter Eighteen: A Stranger in the Library

       Chapter Nineteen: Lucy’s Boots

       Chapter Twenty: Summoned

       Chapter Twenty-One: Swallowing Magic

       Chapter Twenty-Two: Caught in the Net

       Chapter Twenty-Three: Chasing the Demon

      Chapter Twenty-Four: Caruthers Attacks

      Chapter Twenty-Five: The End of Hard Times Hall

       Acknowledgements

       Don’t Miss the First Two Adventures!

       Books by Justine Windsor

      About the Publisher

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      Lucy Goodly dodged sideways. A flurry of sparks whizzed past, just missing her ear. Instead they hit the chimney breast behind her and sputtered out, leaving a faint smell of burning as well as a large scorch mark on Lady Tabitha Grave’s nose. Not the real Lady Tabitha Grave, but her portrait, which hung over the fireplace.

      “Excellent!” said Lord Grave. “Your turn now. Concentrate. Create your own attack sparks and return fire!” Bathsheba, Lord Grave’s black panther, blinked her yellow eyes before slinking off behind one of the sofas, as though she understood what was about to happen.

      Lucy narrowed her eyes and focused her thoughts on the spell in hand. As Lord Grave had instructed her earlier, she imagined all the warmth in her body rushing towards her fingers. As she did so, her fingertips grew hotter and hotter until they felt as though they would burst into flames. When she felt she couldn’t bear the heat a second longer, she raised her hand behind her head, and then, as if she was throwing an invisible ball, flung it forward. The orange-red sparks that were clustered around her fingers flew off like tiny flies and hurtled towards Lord Grave, who ducked. But he was a smidgeon too late and the sparks grazed the crown of his top hat. Lord Grave whipped it off and beat the sparks out before they could do too much damage. Lucy folded her arms and smiled in satisfaction.

      “Impressive!” Lord Grave said. “Now, as I have just demonstrated, you might not always be able to get out of the path of an attack spark. And a magician skilled in this particular art might be able to create a spark that will track you if you try to flee from it. However, there is a technique that—”

      There was a knock at the drawing-room door.

      “Who is it?” Lord Grave called.

      “It’s Violet, sir.”

      “One moment!” Lord Grave put his hat back on. Then he hurried over to the window and opened it in order to dispel the smell of burning before calling Violet in.

      “Please, sir. Mrs Crawley wants to know if you can spare Lucy for a while. She needs us to fetch some ingredients for the ball,” Violet said shyly. She was a small mousey-haired girl three or four years younger than Lucy, who was twelve. Caruthers, Violet’s knitted frog which she carried everywhere with her, was tucked into her apron pocket.

      “Very well. Lucy has finished her … dusting, I think, so she’s free to go.”

      “Thank you, sir. Oh my, look


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