“Well, well. Fancy that,” said Beetle.
At the Great Arch both Beetle and Septimus stopped and turned around to look up at the Wizard Tower. It was one of those crystal-clear nights when the lights of the Tower were dazzling; they glittered and sparkled in the frosty air, brilliant against the Tower’s silver sheen, turning the gently falling snowflakes a soft purple and blue.
“Wow,” breathed Beetle. “Sometimes I forget how beautiful this place is.”
“Yeah,” said Septimus. After a month underground, he too had forgotten. He felt a pang of homesickness for the Wizard Tower and had a real desire to turn around and go back . . . home. He sighed. He had one more day with Marcellus. That was all. It would soon be over.
Septimus and Beetle walked through the inky shadows of the Great Arch and emerged into Wizard Way. They looked down the snowy Way, quietly busy with people closing up their shops for the night, and at the far end they saw the unmistakable red flash of Jenna’s cloak as she disappeared through the Palace Gate. Septimus was in a reflective mood.
“You never did say anything to Jenna, did you?” he said.
Beetle looked at his friend, surprised. “About what?”
“Beetle, you know what. About liking her.”
Beetle shot Septimus a look as if to say, How did you know? “Well. No,” he said. “She didn’t want me to. I could tell.”
“Could you? How?” Septimus really wanted to know.
“I just could. And then . . . well, I suddenly knew for sure that she didn’t care. Not in that way. But it’s fine now. I’ve got better things to do.”
“So that’s okay, then?” Septimus sounded doubtful.
Beetle smiled. He realized what he had said really was true. “Actually, Sep, it is okay. What I love is being Chief Scribe. Most days I wake up and I still can’t believe that’s what I am. Most days I don’t even think about Jenna.”
“Really?”
“Well . . . maybe that’s not totally true. But it’s okay. And anyway, she’s very young.”
“She’s not that young—she’s nearly fourteen and a half now.”
“Yeah . . . well. Even so.”
“Same age as me.” Septimus grinned.
“You’re six months older, remember—after your time with Marcellus?”
“Oh, yeah.” That was not something Septimus liked to remember much—being stranded in another Time. The more he thought about it the less he wanted to go back to Marcellus’s house in Snake Slipway, which—especially at night—reminded him of that Time. He took a deep breath of the Wizard Way air from his Time and wandered along with Beetle toward the Manuscriptorium.
At the door, Beetle said with a grin, “Want to come in and have a FizzFroot? I’ve got buckets of ’em upstairs now.”
Septimus shook his head. “I should really be getting back to Marcellus. I have to tell him that Marcia won’t let me do another month with him.”
“Oh, come on, Sep. Just one little FizzFroot. You haven’t seen my new place yet.”
Septimus needed no excuse to change his mind. “Okay, Beetle. Just one.”
The new Chief Hermetic Scribe took the ExtraOrdinary Apprentice through the Manuscriptorium with a proudly proprietorial air. The large room with the tall desks was empty. Unlike the previous Chief Hermetic Scribe, Beetle did not believe in keeping scribes at work after dark had fallen. It was brightly lit with fresh candles placed in the ancient candleholders set into the wall and the room no longer had the air of suppressed boredom and gloom that had pervaded it in Jillie Djinn’s time. Beetle and Septimus headed toward the short flight of steps that led up to a battered blue door.
The rooms of a Chief Hermetic Scribe were modest in comparison with the rooms of an ExtraOrdinary Wizard, but Beetle loved them. There was one long, low-ceilinged room with a multitude of beams that spread almost the entire length of the Manuscriptorium. The room had a line of three low dormer windows on either side. One side looked out across the rooftops to the Moat and the dark Forest beyond, and the other looked out on Wizard Way. Off the main room was a small, beamed bedroom, a bathroom and a tiny kitchen where Beetle kept his stash of FizzBom cubes to make up the FizzFroot.
“Wow,” said Septimus, admiring the minute kitchen dominated by the large bucket of refurbished FizzBom cubes on the shelf. “You can do just what you want. Without Marcia banging on your door telling you not to.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Beetle with a grin. “Chocolate Banana, Apricot Ginger or a weird blue one—no idea what it is.”
“Weird blue one, please.”
“Thought you’d say that. Cheers, Sep.”
“Cheers, Beetle. Happy new home.”
It was much later when Septimus finally left the Manu-scriptorium and headed back to Marcellus’s house in Snake Slipway. As he approached the tall, thin house, with its windows ablaze with lighted candles, Septimus felt very guilty for being so late. He looked up to the little attic window where his bedroom was and saw the lighted candle in the window, which Marcellus always placed there at night. He thought of the welcoming fire in the grate, the sloping eaves, his desk and his bookshelf full of Physik books, and he felt a stab of sadness. He realized he had loved being there too. He thought about the great Chamber of Alchemie and Physik where the Fyre was ready to be lit—which he was going to miss. He sighed. There were two places in the Castle where he belonged, but he had to choose one. And he had chosen. But it didn’t mean he liked the other any less. And it didn’t make it any easier to tell Marcellus.
Septimus let himself into the house with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Marcellus was waiting. “You look frozen,” he said as he ushered Septimus into the small front room. “Your lips are quite blue.” He made Septimus sit beside the fire and drink some of his special hot ginger. While Marcellus was putting another log on the fire, Septimus took the opportunity to rub the FizzFroot blue off his lips.
“That’s better,” said Marcellus, settling into his old armchair opposite Septimus. “You’ve got some color back now.”
Septimus took a deep breath. “I have to leave tomorrow,” he said.
“Ah,” said Marcellus.
“I’m sorry,” said Septimus.
Marcellus gave a rueful smile. “I am not surprised, Apprentice. I had a little, ah, contretemps with Marcia recently and to tell the truth, I was not expecting anything else.” He raised his glass to his old Apprentice. “Here’s to you, Septimus. And my thanks to you for all your work. I know this last month has not been quite what you had hoped for, but I have so enjoyed having you to help me.” Marcellus paused. “I did hope you might decide to . . . what is the phrase . . . jump ship. Become my permanent Apprentice.”
“I did think about it,” said Septimus. “A lot.”
“But you decided not?”
“Yes.”
Marcellus nodded. “I understand. One has to make choices. You will be difficult to replace, Apprentice. However, I do have someone in mind.”
Septimus looked surprised. It had not occurred to him that Marcellus would replace him with someone else. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
Late that evening, when Septimus had gone up to his room to pack his bag, the new residents of the house opposite Marcellus Pye got an unexpected visit from their neighbor.
Lucy Gringe, resplendent in a beribboned dressing gown she had just finished making, opened the door. “Oh!” she said. And then, remembering her manners, “Hello, Mr. Pye. Do come in.”
“Thank you.” Marcellus stepped inside. “Goodness,” he said. It was chaos.
“Excuse the mess. Wedding presents,” said Lucy cheerfully. “It’s nice to see you. Would you like some herb tea? Come through.”
“Oh, well, actually I wondered if Simon was—” But Lucy had already set off. Marcellus followed her along the dark, narrow corridor, catching his long pointy shoes on various objects strewn across the bare floorboards.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry, Mr. Pye. You
okay?”
“Oof. Yes. Thank you, Lucy.”
They negotiated the obstacle course and reached the tiny kitchen, which consisted of a fire with a large pot hanging over it and a deep stone sink set on tree-trunk legs, in which sat the remains of supper. The kitchen was a jumble, covered with pots and pans that had nowhere to hang, half-open boxes and stacks of plates. Lucy saw Marcellus’s gaze travel around the room. “We’ll get it sorted,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll call Si; he’ll be really glad to see you.”
“Ah,” said Marcellus, still lost for words.
Lucy opened the back door and yelled into a tiny yard enclosed by a high brick wall, “Si . . . Si! Mr. Pye!”
Simon, who had been trying to unblock a drain, emerged from the shadows, wiping his hands on his tunic.
“Si, Marcellus is here to see you,” said Lucy.
Simon smiled. “Good evening, Marcellus. Good to see you. Would you like some tea?”
Marcellus, a fastidious man, had decided it might be safer not to risk the tea. “Your good lady wife . . .”
Lucy, still not used to being called Simon’s wife, giggled.
“. . . kindly offered me some, but I mustn’t stay long. I have a proposition to put to you, Simon.”
Lucy and Simon looked at each other.
Simon cleared a pile of plates off a rickety chair. “Please, do sit down, Marcellus.”
Marcellus saw the sticky ring left on the chair and shook his head. “No, no. I really must get back. This won’t take a moment.”
Five minutes later Simon and Lucy watched Marcellus Pye cross the snowy slipway back to his house, the moonlight glinting off the gold fastenings on the back of his shoes.
Simon was lost for words. In his hand was a precious copy of the Alchemist’s oeuvre, the I, Marcellus, with instructions to read it thoroughly and meet Marcellus at six o’clock the following evening.
“Well,” said Lucy. “Who’d have thought it?”
15
THE LAST DAY
Septimus awoke early in his little bedroom at the top of the house on Snake Slipway. Outside the snow was falling fast and the room was dull with the gray winter morning light. He lit his bedside candle and leaned back against the pillow, reluctant to get out of bed. That was one thing he would not miss. The Wizard Tower was always a perfect temperature. Marcellus’s house was, like all old Castle houses during the Big Freeze, bitterly cold.
An hour later Septimus was with Marcellus in an old lock-up at the end of Gold Button Drop—a dead-end alleyway just off the end of Alchemie Way. The lock-up was a cover for a secret entrance to Alchemie Quay, which Marcellus had recently reopened. After locking the little iron door behind them, Marcellus pulled open the circular manhole cover in the center of the earthen floor. A glow of red light shone upward, lighting the rough stones of the lock-up’s conical roof. Carefully, Marcellus unhooked a small Fyre Globe from its peg just below the manhole cover, clipped it onto his belt, and began the descent down the iron rungs set into the brick chimney. Septimus swung himself in after Marcellus and pulled the trapdoor shut with a clang.
There followed a long descent down a brick-lined shaft, eerily lit with the red light from the Globe. Eventually Marcellus and Septimus reached a wide, brick-lined tunnel and set off along it. Some minutes later, they emerged into the first curve of the Labyrinth, but instead of turning left, as they normally did for the Great Chamber, Marcellus turned right and led Septimus out onto Alchemie Quay.
“It is your last day, Apprentice,” Marcellus said.
“It is,” agreed Septimus, wondering what Marcellus had in mind. He hoped it was going to be more interesting than cleaning sand out from cupboards with a toothbrush.
“Septimus,” said Marcellus. “I wish to apologize for sending you off on a wild-goose chase to collect the Cloud Flask. I needed time to think.”
“Oh?” said Septimus.
“Indeed. And your absence made me realize how much I valued you. I have made an error in not telling you everything that I am doing here.”
“Ah,” said Septimus, not entirely surprised.
Marcellus took a deep breath, aware that he was taking an irrevocable step. “I want to show you the Fyre,” he said.
Septimus did not understand. “But you haven’t lit it yet.”
“Apprentice, the furnace that you see in the Great Chamber is a decoy. The true Fyre has already begun.”
Suddenly things began to make sense. “Where?”
“Come. I will explain.” Marcellus led Septimus over to the edge of the Quay, where the pink paddleboat bobbed quietly, tethered to its ring. Marcellus kept it just in case—an Alchemist always had an emergency escape route. The UnderFlow Pool lay dark at their feet and the familiar feeling of vertigo that always got to Septimus when he stood on the edge of the UnderFlow Pool made him feel dizzy.
“See the currents in the water?” asked Marcellus.
Septimus nodded.
“A hundred feet down from here is a sluice gate. Some weeks ago I opened it. Now water is flowing through it, pouring down a channel bored through the rock to a reservoir far below. This is the water that is making the Fyre.”
“But water doesn’t make Fyre,” said Septimus.
“Alchemical Fyre is different,” said Marcellus. “It is a beautiful, living thing. And life needs water. Before you leave me, Septimus, I want you to see it. So that when you return to the Wizard Tower, you will understand that whatever they may tell you about the Fyre, it is not true.”
Septimus was puzzled. “But no one has ever told me anything about the Fyre,” he said.
“They do not speak of it,” said Marcellus. “But if they ever do, I would like you to understand that it is not the terrible thing they say it is.”
“Right.”
“But . . . there is one little thing.”
“Yes?” said Septimus warily.
“Promise me that you will tell no one what you see today.” Marcellus glanced around as though he expected to find Marcia lurking in a corner. “Not even Marcia.”
“I can’t promise that,” Septimus said regretfully. “Not now that I am going back to Marcia. Anyway, Marcia asked you to start the Fyre, didn’t she, so she knows already.”
“Marcia thinks the Fyre we are lighting is in the Great Chamber of Alchemie. She does not know that the true Fyre is in the place that all ExtraOrdinary Wizards fear and have promised to keep Sealed forevermore—the Chamber of Fyre. If she knew that she would close it down, just as Julius Pike once did.”
“I don’t think Marcia would close it down, because she doesn’t know anything about it.”
“Of course she knows about it,” said Marcellus. “She is the ExtraOrdinary Wizard.”
“But before I was coming here I asked her about the Fyre and she said she didn’t know a thing. Nothing.”
“There are many things Apprentices are not told,” said Marcellus.
Septimus was not convinced. He knew when Marcia was deliberately not telling him things—she had a certain “don’t go there” warning look in her eyes. But when they had discussed the Fyre, Marcia’s expression had been one of bemusement. He remembered her saying, “There is something about this Fyre stuff that we just don’t know anymore. I wish I knew what it was . . .”
“Apprentice, let me explain,” said Marcellus. “After the Great Alchemie Disaster, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Julius Pike—who was once my dear friend—told me that he would make sure that all future ExtraOrdinary Wizards would never allow the Fyre Chamber to be UnSealed. Never again would the Fyre Cauldron be used. The only reason Marcia has agreed to the Fyre is because she thinks it is the one in the Great Chamber of Alchemie. And I know that, like any other ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Marcia would never let the Chamber of Fyre be opened. All I ask you is to keep it secret for”—Marcellus did some quick calculations—“another month? After that I will reveal it to Marcia, I promise.”
“But why in a month—why not tell Marcia now?”
>
“It will not be ready until then. Alchemical Fyre is delicate in its early stages of Life and takes time to reach maturity. But once the Fyre is ready and Marcia sees that it has been burning safely for some time, then I have a chance to prove to her that all is not as she has been told. Do you understand?”
“I suppose so. . . .” Septimus understood, but it did not make keeping the secret feel any better.
Marcellus was uneasy; it felt decidedly risky having Septimus go back to Marcia at such a delicate time. “That, Apprentice, is why I am so sorry you are leaving me now. Before it all begins. Perhaps, when you see the Fyre, you will reconsider your decision to leave.”
“It’s not really my decision,” said Septimus.
“Indeed, no. While you are Marcia’s Apprentice it is not your decision. It is hers. But if you were to decide to become the Castle’s first Alchemie Apprentice then that would be different.” Marcellus left the offer hanging in the air.
“Sometimes,” said Septimus, staring at his reflection in the dark waters of the UnderFlow, “I wish there were two of me. I wish I could be in the Wizard Tower and here at the same time.”
Marcellus smiled. “Even the greatest Magyk cannot make that happen,” he said.
“Not for longer than seven seconds,” said Septimus.
Marcellus looked impressed that it could happen at all.
Septimus thought for a while. “Okay,” he said.
There were three arches leading off from the Alchemie Quay, each one lit by a Fyre Globe. Marcellus headed for the right-hand archway. Inside the archway, he turned to Septimus apologetically.
“I know you do not like building work, Apprentice, but I assure you this is the last you will have to do.” Marcellus opened the old carpetbag in which every day he brought their lunch, and to Septimus’s surprise, from underneath the neatly wrapped sandwiches he took out a hammer and heavy chisel, which he handed to Septimus.