Fyre

  Ther-umm.

  The ghosts parted to let them through, all passing favorable comments on Jenna’s Queenly abilities. Her grandmother, Queen Matthilda, who had left her daughter sulking in the turret, could resist no longer. She Appeared to Jenna. “Well done, my dear,” she said.

  Jenna looked shocked. No ghost of a Queen—apart from the ghastly Etheldredda—had ever spoken to her. There was, as she knew from section 133 in The Queen Rules, a ban on ghosts speaking to Living Princesses and Queens. It was put there for the very good reason that all Queens were convinced that they knew best and would have no hesitation in telling the current incumbent so. But Queen Matthilda—who had watched over her granddaughter since the day she was born—could keep silent no longer. Her granddaughter needed to know she was doing well and Queen Matthilda intended to tell her. She lightly patted Jenna’s arm and smiled. “You will make a good Queen,” she said.

  “Oh!” said Jenna. “Thank you!”

  Ther-umm.

  A sudden gasp from Jannit broke the moment. “My hot pot!” she yelled and took off running across the yard, leaping over the upturned boats, heading for her hut. A cloud of black smoke was billowing from the stovepipe in the roof and suddenly everyone could smell burning.

  Septimus went to help.

  To the background of sailor’s curses and the sound of a metal pot hissing in the snow, Marcellus and Jenna looked at the Dragon Boat, lying white and majestic in the blue of the Dragon House.

  Ther-umm.

  “I don’t want to wall her in again,” Jenna said. “I want to be able to come and talk to her. To watch over her, just like Aunt Zelda would do if she were here.”

  “I understand, Princess,” said Marcellus, “but perhaps you should seek advice from the Keeper first.”

  Jenna was not sure. “Aunt Zelda forgets stuff now,” she said. “I don’t know if she knows what’s best anymore.”

  Marcellus was still annoyed with Marcia, but he knew he must give as good advice to Jenna as possible. “Then ask Marcia,” he said. “She will know.”

  Septimus took a very reluctant Spit Fyre back to his Dragon Field and arranged to meet Jenna by the Great Arch. Jannit retreated to her hut, locked the door and embarked upon cooking sausage-and-bean hot pot take two.

  It was later that evening that Jannit, to her utter dismay, found she had two dragons in the boatyard. Spit Fyre had returned and was sitting, perfectly quietly, at the entrance to the Dragon House. Jannit was not pleased, but there was something about the two dragons together that touched her. It was almost, she thought, as if they were mother and son.

  13

  WELCOME BACK

  Alther Mella, ex-ExtraOrdinary Wizard, ghost and mentor was up in the Pyramid Library with Marcia. Alther’s presence broke the convention that ExtraOrdinary Wizard ghosts did not return to the Wizard Tower, but after her old tutor’s shocking death, Marcia had missed Alther so much that when he was released from his year and a day in the place where he had entered ghosthood, Marcia had asked Alther to come back to the Wizard Tower and to use it just as he had when he was Living. She had never regretted it.

  The tall, purple-clad ghost with his white hair tied back in a ponytail was hovering over a large book with tissue-thin pages, wafting them over one by one. He was helping Marcia search for something—anything—that would explain the puddles. It was a thankless task. They had found nothing. But Marcia could not shake off the feeling that deep below the Castle something was going on. It was even giving her nightmares: fires burning out of control and monsters coming out of the deep regularly invaded her sleep.

  Marcia knew that everything relating to What Lies Beneath the Castle was stored either in the Manuscriptorium Vaults or in the Pyramid Library. Beetle had done a complete search of that section in the Vaults and found nothing more than his Vent diagram—so whatever information there was had to be in the Pyramid Library.

  What puzzled Marcia was that although she and Alther had found nothing positive, they had found some strange absences. In many of the shelf indexes there were unexplained gaps, even complete empty pages. The Alchemie section was almost nonexistent apart from some very basic student primers, and the notes relating the Ice Tunnels went back no further than when they were Frozen after the Great Alchemie Disaster, which was very odd, Alther said, because they were as old as the Castle itself. It seemed to both Marcia and Alther that a large chunk of Castle history had been systematically removed. And Marcia was beginning to suspect that the lack of information about the Fyre and the Vents was linked. They must be, she thought, part of the same system and were therefore removed at the same time. But why?

  “The funny thing is, Marcia,” Alther said as he wafted through the pages of yet another index, “you wouldn’t know things were missing unless you were looking for them.”

  “Exactly,” Marcia agreed. “And if you didn’t know about them to start with, you wouldn’t be looking for them, would you?”

  “If you ask me,” said Alther, “someone has spent a long time up here, systematically removing anything relating to Alchemie and ancient structures beneath the Castle. It must have been an ExtraOrdinary Wizard—no one else would have had the access. I wonder who it was?”

  “More to the point, I wonder why,” said Marcia. She thumped a pile of pamphlets down and a cloud of dust Passed Through Alther. The ghost spluttered. “Careful, Marcia. I’m allergic to dust.”

  Marcia laughed. “You can’t be, Alther. You’re a ghost.”

  Alther looked a little offended. It was not polite to remind a ghost of their ghosthood. “Well, I am,” he said huffily. “Ever since that ghastly Drago Mills place.”

  “It’s not totally ghastly,” said Marcia. “I got a very nice rug from the sale. Oh, hello!”

  The little door to the Library had swung open and Septimus and Jenna came in.

  “How lovely to see you both!” said Marcia. She looked at her Apprentice, who she had not seen for some weeks. “Oh, Septimus, you look so pale.”

  Septimus fielded a barrage of questions about whether he was eating properly and did he ever get outside in the daylight, and then went to talk to Alther, leaving Jenna to ask Marcia’s advice about the Dragon Boat.

  Ten minutes later, Septimus, Jenna and Marcia were out in the corridor, waiting for the stairs to change direction. They were on slow mode due to the arrival of the elderly parents of one of the Wizards, and Marcia was polite enough to wait until they had got off. Septimus watched the silver treads rise sedately upward; the shafts of sunlight coming in through the azure-blue glass of the stairwell window threw lazy, glimmering patterns onto the solid silver treads. He loved this time of day in the Wizard Tower; there was something Magykal about the evening sun when it came in low through the windows. Septimus took a deep breath and breathed in the scent of Magyk—sweet with a hint of sandalwood.

  “Have you seen him acting suspiciously?” Marcia said suddenly.

  “Huh?” said Septimus, heady with the Magyk.

  “Marcellus. Have you noticed anything . . . strange?”

  It was a difficult question for Septimus to answer: many things that Marcellus did could be thought of as strange—especially by Marcia. But Septimus did not like to tell tales. “No,” he said.

  The stairs changed direction and Marcia hopped on. “I’ll look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow evening, Septimus.” She looked at her Apprentice critically as he stepped back to let Jenna get on before him. “It’s not good for you, being buried like a mole under the ground.”

  Marcia was beginning to disappear from view. Jenna jumped on after her and made her way down a few steps until she was near enough to talk. “It really is all right, then?” she asked Marcia. “The Dragon House staying open?”

  “Fresh air and some sunshine—just what the Dragon Boat needs,” Marcia said. “And Septimus too.”

  The stairs were now approaching the fifteenth floor. Dandra Draa, the new Sick Bay Wizard—headhunted by Marcia for her s
kills in DisEnchantment—had just finished an emergency callout to a Wizard who had been convinced he had Enchanted himself by reading an ancient text. Dandra had diagnosed Papyrophobia and was now on her way up to see Marcia. She was waiting patiently for the stairs to change direction when she saw the distinctive purple pointy pythons appearing above her.

  “Good afternoon, Madam Marcia,” said the Sick Bay Wizard. She waited politely for Marcia to rotate past.

  “Jump on, Dandra,” said Marcia. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than wait there.”

  Dandra Draa was new to the Wizard Tower and was unsure of protocol. She had recently arrived from the Dry, Hot Countries in the South where she had lived in a beautiful, star-encrusted, circular tent beside a deep pool on the edge of a desert. Life there had been so much simpler. It had certainly not involved stairs of any description—or ExtraOrdinary Wizards with weird shoes. Dandra hesitated. Surely it was not right to stand above the ExtraOrdinary Wizard? But it was impossible to step on below as those stairs had already passed. And oh, no, here came the Princess, slowly revolving down. Dandra did a confused half bow, half curtsy. What was she to do now? Could she jump on in front of the Princess? Oh, it was all too much.

  “Get on, Dandra, do,” said Marcia impatiently.

  Dandra took a deep breath and jumped nervously onto the empty stair between Marcia and Jenna. It was an embarrassing squash and Dandra hardly dared breathe. She decided to deliver her message, whatever the protocol.

  “Madam Marcia. What we hope for happen. Syrah Syara wake.”

  Marcia took a moment to digest Dandra’s way of speaking. But Septimus understood at once.

  “Syrah’s awake?” he asked. “You mean she is DisEnchanted?”

  Dandra looked up to see the big brown boots of the ExtraOrdinary Apprentice. “Yes,” she said. “Syrah is DisEnchanted.”

  “Dandra, that is marvelous news,” said Marcia. “I shall go and see her at once.”

  “So shall I,” said Septimus.

  Marcia stepped off the stairs, closely followed by Dandra Draa, who performed an awkward jump and to her embarrassment landed on Marcia’s cloak hem.

  “See you tomorrow, Sep,” Jenna said, as she carried on down.

  “See you, Jen,” Septimus called, as he jumped onto the seventh floor.

  Jenna saw Marcia put her arm around Septimus’s shoulders and lead him down the dimly lit corridor that led to the Sick Bay. She was glad to see Septimus back with Marcia in the Wizard Tower; it suited him better and, she had to admit, it felt safer. Jenna pushed away a niggle of anxiety at the thought that he still had one more day to go in the Great Chamber of Alchemie and Physik—Septimus would soon be back, she told herself.

  Jenna jumped off the stairs in the Great Hall and wandered across to the tall silver doors, watching the flickering images on the walls—which showed important and often dramatic moments in the history of the Tower—fade in and out of focus. One that she had not seen before came into view: Septimus and Spit Fyre attacking the Darke Dragon. She smiled and wondered if Septimus had seen it yet.

  Jenna had an idea. She scribbled a Welcome Back party invitation for Septimus and knocked on the door of the duty Wizard’s cupboard. Hildegarde Pigeon peered around the door.

  “Oh!” she said, looking surprised and glancing back into the cupboard. “Princess Jenna,” Hildegarde said, oddly loudly. She peered out. “How can I help you?”

  A muffled cough came from inside the cupboard. Jenna thought it sounded familiar, although she couldn’t place it. “Can you give this to Septimus, please?” she asked.

  Hildegarde’s hand shot out of the narrow gap between the door and the doorjamb and hurriedly took the invitation.

  “Um, thank you,” said Jenna. “Sorry to interrupt whatever it is you’re doing.”

  “Doing?” Hildegarde squeaked. “I’m not doing anything!” The door to the duty Wizard cupboard slammed shut.

  Jenna shook her head—now that Hildegarde was almost a proper Wizard she was as weird as the rest of them, she thought. Pleased to be leaving the Magykal mist that always hung around the Great Hall of the Wizard Tower, Jenna whispered the password and waited while the huge silver doors to the Wizard Tower swung open and the floor bade her GOOD-BYE, PRINCESS. HAVE A NICE DAY.

  Moments later she was running down the white marble steps in the brilliant, breathtakingly cold winter sunshine, heading back to the Dragon Boat—which was, amazingly, alive.

  14

  DISENCHANTMENT

  In the DisEnchanting Chamber, Syrah Syara lay in her cocoon, suspended from the ceiling by the wispy strands of Forrest Bands. She looked just as she had done when Septimus had said good-bye to her before he left to be with Marcellus: her face was bone-thin, her hair pulled back into two tight little plaits and her skin was tinged blue by the light in the Chamber. Nothing had changed except for one important thing: Syrah had her eyes open.

  Syrah looked up at the three faces staring down at her. Her gaze traveled blankly from Marcia, to Dandra Draa and on to Septimus.

  “Syrah,” said Septimus. “It’s me, Septimus. Syrah, you’re safe. You’re in the Wizard Tower.”

  Syrah frowned and struggled to speak.

  “Is enough now,” Dandra said. “I watch Syrah tonight and if all go well, we move her. Is good. Out, please.” In her own domain, Dandra Draa had confidence. She shooed Marcia and Septimus out like a couple of annoying bluebottles. They emerged into the Sick Bay, smiling.

  “Wonderful,” said Marcia. “Dandra has done all I hoped she would. I’ll see you tomorrow evening, Septimus, six o’clock sharp, please, in time for Dandra and Hildegarde’s Wizard Warming Supper.” She strode across the Sick Bay, giving a cheery wave to Rose, the Sick Bay Apprentice, and was gone. Septimus sighed. He wished he did not have to go back to Marcellus. He so much wanted to be there when Syrah came out of the DisEnchanting Chamber.

  Loath to leave, Septimus stopped to say hello to Rose. Rose—tall and skinny with brown hair so long that she could sit on it—looked very efficient. Her hair was tied back into the regulation Sick Bay plait and she wore a white tabard over her green Apprentice robes.

  “Still here?” Septimus asked. He knew that Rose, who was on the new Apprentice rotation scheme, had been hoping to go on to the Charm Desk.

  “Still here,” agreed Rose. She glanced around. “Worse luck,” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry.” Septimus stopped. That didn’t sound right. “I mean, I didn’t mean I’m sorry to see you. I meant—”

  Rose smiled. “That’s okay. I know what you meant. I say stupid stuff like that all the time. Oh! See, I did it right then.”

  “Quits then,” Septimus said, grinning. “Anyway, maybe it’s not so bad still being here. Maybe you’ll end up upstairs.”

  “Upstairs?”

  “Yes. With Marcia. She’s put the Pyramid Library onto the scheme.”

  “Wow!” Rose looked amazed. The Charm Desk paled into insignificance compared with the Pyramid Library. “Oh, gosh, I must go and get some sheets,” she said. “We’ve got a scribe coming up. Broken leg.”

  Rose rushed off and headed for the cupboard between beds twelve and one. The beds in the Sick Bay were ranged around the room like numbers on a clockface. There were only two occupants, both elderly Wizards and both asleep. Septimus watched a large pile of sheets stagger over to bed three.

  “Need any help?” he offered the stack of sheets.

  “Oh, yes, please,” it said.

  Septimus helped Rose make the bed in the approved Young Army fashion. Rose surveyed the result. “You’re good,” she said, surprised.

  Septimus very nearly gave Rose a Young Army salute but stopped just in time. “Thank you,” he said. “I’d better go. I’ll be back tomorrow evening.”

  Rose smiled. “Syrah will be out then.”

  “Yes, isn’t that great?”

  “Yes. Miss Draa has been amazing.” Rose watched Septimus breeze out and tried not to
wish that he was coming back to see her rather than Syrah.

  Down in the Great Hall, Septimus bumped into Beetle. “Hey, Beet!” He smiled. “What are you doing here?”

  “Hello, Sep. Just seen poor old Barnaby Ewe onto the stretcher lift. Broke his leg. He fell into one of those puddles—there’s a really deep one in a dark corner of Little Creep Cut. Be careful if you go down there. People cover them up, then some joker gets an idea it would be fun to move the covers.”

  Septimus fell in with Beetle as he walked across to the doors. “Marcia was going on about puddles too,” he said. “She thinks it has something to do with Marcellus.”

  “It has,” said Beetle. “I am convinced of it. He’s doing something he’s not telling us about.”

  “Really?”

  The double doors swung open and a rush of fresh, cold air met them. Twilight was falling as Beetle and Septimus headed down the wide steps and the great doors closed silently behind them. They walked across the Wizard Tower Courtyard, their boots crackling through the frosted snow, the ice crystals sparkling in the light from the rushlights that lined the wall.

  “I suppose you haven’t noticed Marcellus doing anything unusual?” asked Beetle. “Like disappearing and not saying where he’s been?”

  Septimus did not reply.

  “Sorry,” said Beetle. “I know I shouldn’t ask. Confidentiality between Master and Apprentice and all that.”

  “It’s okay. I’m not his Apprentice, and I’m not going to be either. I was thinking about what you said. Well, Marcellus comes and goes, you know? Nothing unusual, really. He’s just busy, I guess.”

  Beetle sensed a “but.” He was right.

  “But . . . well, yesterday Marcellus sent me off to Aunt Zelda’s to get a flask. He didn’t tell me it was so huge that I’d have to bring it back across the Marshes. He must have known it would take days. And he didn’t seem pleased that I was back so soon. It made no sense—until I thought that maybe he didn’t want me around for some reason. You know?”