“I think so,” said Jenna. “I can't remember all the details of the other one. But it's got the same black glass and ... the same horrible feeling.”
“That is not entirely illuminating,” said Jillie Djinn, “for a Glass will, to some extent—depending on your susceptibility to such manifestations that may or may not be apparent—reflect your own expectations.”
Jenna had an inkling of how Wolf Boy had felt earlier. “They do what?” she asked.
“You see what you expect to see,” said Jillie Djinn briskly.
“Oh.”
The Scribe sat down at the table and opened a drawer. She drew out a large leather-bound notebook, a sheaf of papers covered in columns of figures, a pen and a small bottle of green ink. “Thank you, Jenna,” she said without looking up. “I believe I have enough information. I will now proceed.”
Jenna waited patiently for a few minutes and then, when the Scribe showed no sign of stopping her scribbling, she asked, “So ... Septimus—he'll come back here, will he?”
The Chief Hermetic Scribe looked up, already lost in another world of calculations and conjunctions. “Maybe yes. Maybe no. Who can say?”
“I thought you might,” Jenna muttered crossly.
“I may,” said Jillie Djinn sternly, “be able to say when my calculations are done.”
“When will they be done?” asked Jenna anxiously, feeling that she could hardly wait another minute to see Septimus again and ask him what had happened.
“This time next year, if all goes well,” replied the Scribe.
“This time next year?”
“If all goes well.”
Jenna walked back into the front office in a bad mood. At the sight of the Princess, Beetle jumped up from his seat behind the desk. His ears suddenly turned bright red; he gave a hamster-style squeak and said, “Hey.”
“What?” snapped Jenna.
“Um. I wondered...”
“What?”
“Um ... Sep okay?”
“No, he's not,” Jenna replied.
Beetle's black eyes looked worried. “I guessed not.”
Jenna shot Beetle a glance. “How did you know?”
Beetle shrugged. “His boots. He's only got one pair of boots. And you've got them.”
“Well, I'm going to give them back to him,” said Jenna, making for the door. “I don't know how I'm going to find him, but I will—and I'm not waiting a whole year to do it either.”
Beetle grinned. “Well, if that's all you need to do, it's easy.”
“Oh, ha-ha, Beetle.”
Beetle gulped. He didn't like making Jenna cross. “No, no, you don't understand. I'm not being funny. It's true. He's easy to find—now that he's Imprinted a dragon.”
Jenna stopped, hand on the doorknob, and stared at Beetle. “How do you mean?” she asked slowly, not daring to hope that Beetle might have the answer that his Chief Hermetic Scribe did not.
“I mean that a dragon can always find his Imprinter,” said Beetle. “All you have to do is a Seek and then, whizz bang, off he goes. Easy-peasy. You could go with him if you wanted, seeing as you're the Navigator. Just got to do a Locum Tenens, that's all. Problem solved.” Beetle folded his arms with an air of satisfaction.
“Beetle, could you ... um, could you say all that again? A bit slower this time, please?”
Beetle grinned at Jenna. “Wait a minute,” he said. Beetle hurled himself through the door and vanished into the back of the Manuscriptorium. Just as Jenna was wondering what could have possibly happened to him, the door burst open and Beetle was back, clutching a bright red and gold tin.
He held the tin out to Jenna. “Yours,” he said.
“Mine?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, well, thank you,” said Jenna. A silence ensued while she looked at the tin and read the words LOKKJAW TOFFEE COMPANY FINEST TREACLE TOFFEES, printed in thick black letters on the lid. “Would you like a toffee, Beetle?” asked Jenna, trying to pry open the tin.
“Not toffees,” said Beetle, coloring.
“Oh?”
“Here, let me get the lid off for you.”
Jenna handed Beetle the tin. He struggled with it for a few seconds; then the lid popped off, and a flurry of what appeared to be bits of very thin leather, most of them either singed, crumpled or torn, tumbled to the floor. A strong smell of dragon filled the air. Flustered and hot, Beetle knelt to retrieve the pieces of sloughed dragon skin.
“Not toffees,” muttered Beetle as he collected them.
“No, they're not,” agreed Jenna.
“Navigator stuff,” Beetle elaborated. He picked out a long piece of green leather and held it up, saying, “ Seek.” Then he found a charred red scrap and said, “ Ignite.”
Lastly he found what he was looking for—a much-folded sheet of thin blue papery material—and said triumphantly, “ Locum Tenens!”
“Oh. Well, thank you, Beetle. That's really nice of you.”
Beetle went a deeper red. “It's okay. I mean ... um, you see, after you became Sep's Navigator on Spit Fyre, I collected all the stuff I could find about Navigators and put it in my toffee tin. The one that my auntie gave me for MidWinter Feast Day. I hope you don't mind,” he said a little sheepishly. “I mean, I hope you don't think I was being nosy or anything.”
“No, of course not. I always meant to find out about being a Navigator but I never did. I think Sep thought—I mean, thinks—that being a Navigator means cutting Spit Fyre's toenails and cleaning out the dragon kennel.”
Beetle laughed and then stopped as he remembered that something horrible had happened to Septimus. “So ... would you like me to show you the Locum?” he asked.
“The what?”
“The Locum Tenens. It will let you take over from Sep, and Spit Fyre will do everything you ask after that—or, well, he'll do everything that he would have done for Sep.”
“Not everything then.” Jenna smiled.
"No. But it's a start. Then you can do the Seek and off you go to find Sep.
Easy—well, it should be. Here it is.“ Beetle carefully took the thin blue piece of sloughed skin, unfolded it and flattened it out on the desk. ”It's a bit complicated, but I reckon it will work okay."