“I thought
you’d know what you were looking at,” said Marcia. “Beetle, I need you to go and check this out. Urgently. That hatch and this fuzzy bit here…wherever that is.”
Beetle whistled between his teeth. “That’s under the old Alchemie Chamber.”
Marcia frowned. “I think,” she said, “that it might be a good idea if you take Septimus with you. There’s safety in numbers. I’ll send him over. You do understand that this is highly confidential, don’t you?”
Beetle nodded.
“I particularly do not want the Ghost of the Vaults to know. He is not to be trusted. You know who he is, I suppose?”
“Tertius Fume?”
“Quite. I thought you would have figured it out. Septimus did too.” Marcia smiled fondly. “Very well, you can put the Plan away now. It’s not good to have it out in the light for too long.”
Beetle began rolling up the Plan. “Do you still want the Apprentice Urn?” he asked.
Marcia snapped out of her thoughts. “Oh! I’d quite forgotten. Yes, please, Beetle.”
Marcia unsealed the urn and plunged her arm deep inside. She drew out a roll of vellum tied with purple and green ribbons and sealed with purple sealing wax, which also bore the imprint of the Akhu Amulet. Marcia checked the signature written along the length of the roll. Septimus’s young, wobbly writing was unmistakable, but Marcia was amazed how it had changed in such a short time. Now, Septimus’s signature was sprawling and confident—if a little overcomplicated. Satisfied that she had the right urn, Marcia replaced the roll of indentures. She took out from her ExtraOrdinary Wizard belt a beautiful tiny gold and silver arrow. For a moment she held it in her palm and both she and Beetle gazed at it.
“Sep’s Flyte Charm,” breathed Beetle.
“Half right, Beetle,” corrected Marcia. “It is the Flyte Charm but it does not belong to Septimus. The Flyte Charm is one of the Ancient Charms; it belongs to no one.” With that she dropped the Charm into the depths of the urn.
“Oh!” said Beetle. “Um…did you mean to do that?”
“I most certainly did,” said Marcia. “Septimus needs to settle down and get on with his work. Recently he has been rushing around all over the place—which is, I understand, one of the effects of having the Flyte Charm. People become
unsettled, always wanting to be off. Of course, he says
he’s been seeing his mother, but Sarah tells me she hasn’t seen him for ages and I believe her. The Flyte Charm can stay here until he is old enough to handle it. It is not a toy. You may reseal now, Beetle.”
One of the skills Beetle had learned in the Manuscriptorium was when to say nothing. He could tell that right then was just such a moment. He took the candle from his lamp and set it under a small tripod with a tiny brass saucepan perched upon it. From a drawer in the table he took out a knife and a great chunk of purple sealing wax, then he began to shave off some wax, allowing the shavings to drop into the pan. Marcia and Beetle watched the wax slowly melt into a dark purple puddle. Very carefully, Beetle poured half the wax over the end of the Plan and the other half so that it covered the ridge between the top of the urn and its gold stopper. When the wax was nearly set Marcia took off the Akhu Amulet and pressed it deep into the wax, leaving the unmistakable dragon imprint on the seals.
Marcia watched Beetle disappear into the depths of the Vaults. Somewhere surprisingly distant, she heard the faint scrape of lapis lazuli against stone as Beetle pushed the urn back into its place on a dark shelf far away from prying eyes, then the click of the lock as Beetle laid The Live Plan of What Lies Beneath back in its ebony chest.
“A successful visit?” said Tertius Fume grumpily as they left the Vaults. “I do hope you found nothing too Alarming?”
“I knew
he’d try to listen,” Marcia spluttered indignantly as she followed Beetle back along the zigzag passage. “Serves him right. I put a Sting in the Alarm.”
Beetle chuckled. You don’t mess with Marcia, he thought.
9
A ROOM WITH A VIEW
A bored Thing slowly chewed the tops of its fingers, pulling at long bits of skin with its blackened teeth. It glared at its Master—a waste of space in the opinion of the Thing—and cursed its ill fortune at having been Engendered for such a fool. Its Master, blissfully unaware of the waves of loathing coming his way, was also busy chewing.
Merrin was leaning nonchalantly against the old clock tower opposite the Palace, eating a licorice snake, enjoying his first ever taste of a sweet. After his contretemps with Beetle in the Manuscriptorium, Merrin had wandered back through The Ramblings and had discovered Ma Custard’s All-Day-All-Night Sweet Shop, tucked away on the far side of the Castle down Sugar Cone Cut beside the Old Dock. While the Thing and its sack of bones had loitered outside, creating an oppresive haze that put off other customers, Merrin had spent ages gazing at all the sweets. Ma Custard, who was used to people dithering for hours between lemon lumps and ferocious fizzes, had let him linger. Eventually Merrin had chosen the licorice snake because it reminded him of the black snake that Simon Heap kept, and Merrin had always wondered what snake tasted like.
Merrin savored his last sticky mouthful of licorice. He stared up at the windows that ran the length of the Palace—a long, low, mellow old building—and began to count them. It was then that the idea came to him. Why waste his money on renting a room? Just think how many licorice snakes he could buy with a whole week’s rent. Anyway, he belonged in the Castle—it was his right to live anywhere he wanted. So there. And where better than the Palace? Merrin swallowed the snake’s tail with a decisive gulp. Problem solved.
Merrin was good at finding ways into places—especially places he should not go. So it was easy for him to sneak unnoticed along the narrow high-walled alleyway that led around the outside of the Palace grounds to the small door in the wall of the Palace kitchen garden. The door was open as usual. Sarah Heap liked to leave it open so her friend Sally Mullin could drop by and have a midmorning chat before she got back to the lunchtime rush in her café.
Although Merrin planned to one day have the entire Palace at his disposal—just as DomDaniel’s deputy, the Supreme Custodian, once had—for now things were, regrettably, a little different. Closely followed by the Thing, he slipped in through the open door and found himself in the kitchen garden.