by Angie Sage
“When did it happen?” asked Septimus.
“Been coming on for some time, I think,” Simon said. “It’s been feeling very scratchy, like there was grit in it or something.”
“And the color changed too,” Lucy chimed in. “It used to be so bright, such a brilliant blue with a little streak of gold in it, but for a few weeks now I’ve thought it was getting duller, and then last night I thought it looked quite gray. But this morning it was . . .” Her voice trailed off and she put her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob.
“Could I take a look?” Septimus asked Simon. “Just so I know what we’re dealing with.”
“Yeah. I warn you, it’s not a pretty sight,” Simon said.
Gingerly Simon took his hand away from his eye and opened it. Septimus leaned over and was shocked to see a damp clump of gray dust filling the eye socket. He had never thought of Simon as blind in one eye before, for the lapis had had a sparkle to it and had suited him. But the grayish-white dust looked dead and blank.
Septimus straightened up and tried to think of something positive to say. “It looks like it’s still in one piece. I don’t think it’s going to fall out.”
“Doesn’t feel that way,” Simon said.
Suddenly Lucy burst out with, “But why? Why has it done that? Don’t you have any idea, Septimus?”
Septimus shook his head. “I suppose the Magyk that transformed the living eye to lapis has faded.” He shook his head. “But it is very odd. The lapis seemed so stable.”
“Can’t you put the Magyk back somehow?” Lucy asked. “Make it turn to lapis again?”
Septimus was not at all sure that he could, but he didn’t want to upset Lucy any more than she was already. “I’ll do my best to try, Lucy,” he said. “I’ll go straight to the library and look it up. I’ll ask Marcia, too. I’ll do everything I can. I promise.”
“Thanks, little bro,” Simon said. He put his hand firmly over his eye once again and leaned back on the pillows.
Lucy showed them out. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?” she said. “You know how gossip gets around, and I don’t want William to hear it. I don’t want him scared.” She lowered her voice. “Simon thinks that it’s going to spread. Because it was only the iris that was lapis, but now his whole eye is dust. He’s afraid his brain will be next.”
“No!” Septimus was shocked. “That won’t happen. Surely. It’s just the eye, that’s all.”
Lucy shook her head. “I don’t know, Septimus,” she said. “I think Simon might be right, and I can’t bear—”
A sudden thud from the attic made Lucy stop midsentence. “That’s William,” she said. “I must stop him running in to bounce on our bed. And . . . oh gosh, he’ll be late for school if I don’t hurry.”
Tod and Septimus walked back to the Wizard Tower. “Did Simon’s eye look bad?” Tod asked.
“It did,” Septimus admitted. “It looked horrible.”
“Do you think you can you find some Magyk to turn it back to lapis?” Tod asked.
Septimus shook his head. “I shall turn the library upside down to look,” he said. “But what happened to Simon’s eye is some kind of ancient Earth Magyk, and very little is written about such things.”
Tod was silent for a while. As they walked beneath the Great Arch into the Wizard Tower courtyard, she said, “So . . . could it spread into Simon’s head?”
Septimus sighed. “Maybe if I understood what has caused this, I would know the answer. But right now, I don’t.”
“So we have to find out,” Tod said.
“Yes, we do,” Septimus agreed. But he did not sound very hopeful.
GROUNDWORK
Some miles away in the depths of the Forest, Marissa was stepping out of what looked like a small ramshackle hut built of logs and festooned with twigs. No stranger to the Forest, Marissa then made her way confidently through an avenue of immensely tall trees and set off along the dark and narrow Forest paths. She walked alone, but her plans for the future kept her company, whirling around her head, growing ever wilder and more exciting. Marissa longed to take the first step with her plans and Engender a bodyguard Kraan, but before she did that, there was something she had to fix.
Before Marissa had left the Forest for the Red City, she had asked a select band of the younger witches loyal to her—known to the other witches as the Toadies—to kidnap the baby Orm from the Castle. This had been part of Marissa’s old deal with Oraton-Marr. Her new plans called for something quite different. She now needed the Ormlet to take up residence in the Wizard Tower and start producing precious lapis lazuli beneath it as soon as possible. There must be no stealing of the Ormlet—or Ormnapping, as the witches called it. Marissa hoped they had not already done it; the last thing she wanted was to turn up at the Summer Circle to find that vicious little creature waiting inside her tent.
Marissa hurried along the path that led up to the coven’s Summer Circle, and as she rounded a bend she was pleased to see two young witches, Ariel and Star. They were wandering along deep in conversation, but at the sight of Marissa they became silent and looked, Marissa thought, a little guilty. Anxious to get on with her plans, Marissa ignored her niggle of doubt. “Hey, guys!” she said brightly.
“Hi there,” Ariel said.
“How’s it going?” asked Star.
“Oh, really well. Fantastic, in fact,” Marissa said. “How’s Morwenna?” Morwenna Mould was the ailing Witch Mother of the coven.
“Not great,” Star replied. “It’s sad, really. She keeps falling over. And she’s going a bit . . . you know . . . strange. Obsessed with searching for some kind of key.”
“We’ve found all sorts of keys for her, but they’re never the right ones,” Ariel added.
Marissa knew perfectly well what kind of key the Witch Mother was searching for: the Universal Castle Key. Many hundreds of years in the past it had been lost by a careless ExtraOrdinary Wizard and picked up by a passing witch, who had soon become Witch Mother of the coven. Since then the key had been passed down as a secret symbol of office from one Witch Mother to the next. Marissa—and the young guard—knew exactly where the key was: hanging around her neck on a green ribbon. “Oh, that’s so sad,” she said, trying to sound sympathetic but failing utterly.
“Yes, it is,” Star said crossly.
Ariel hurriedly changed the subject. It would not be good to alienate the person who was clearly going to be the next Witch Mother. “Marissa, it’s good to see you,” she said. “We’ve not seen so much of you recently.”
“We’re all up in the Summer Circle now,” Star chipped in, understanding what Ariel was doing and trying to be friendly herself. “It’s great after that gloomy quarry.”
“Yeah,” Marissa said. “I hate that place. So dark.”
“Mind you, you look like you’ve been in the sun,” Star said.
“Really?” Marissa laughed. “It must be all that fresh air down in the Port. I’ve had a bit of business. With You-Know-Who.”
Ariel and Star gasped. “Not the Port Witch Coven?”
Marissa put her finger to her lips. “Shh. I’m saying nothing. Hey, guys, listen. There’s something important I need you to do. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Star.
“You know the plan to get the Ormlet? Well, it’s canceled.”
“Oh! But why?” Ariel asked.
“I’ll explain later,” said Marissa. “No one’s got it yet, then?”
“Not after it bit Selina’s little finger off, no,” Star said a little sourly.
“Oh, did it?” Marissa thought how glad she was not to have to deal with the Ormlet anymore. “Well, pass the word, will you? Ormnapping is off. Okay?”
“Okay,” Ariel said.
“Quick as you can.” With that Marissa turned on her heel and hurried off with the air of important things to do.
Ariel and Star—personal spies of the Castle Queen, Jenna—watched Marissa stride away into the leafy shadows.
“I h
ate the way she calls us ‘guys,’” said Ariel.
“And then treats us like servants,” added Star.
“So do we report this?”
“Yeah, you know what Queen Jenna said: Report everything. And besides, I fancy lunch at Wizard Sandwiches, don’t you?”
“You bet I do,” said Ariel. “And supper.”
It was late afternoon when Marissa finally had her destination in sight: the old Castle Infirmary. A dilapidated wooden building set away from the Castle on the far side of the Moat, the Infirmary languished in the shade of the outlying trees of the Forest and had a dank, musty air to it. Recently it had been the subject of a little more attention than it had been used to, for it had become the venue for wild parties thrown by the older Castle Apprentices, scribes and the younger witches. This had done little to enhance its looks.
Marissa took the Universal Castle Key from around her neck and turned the lock of the battered Infirmary door. It swung creakily open and Marissa stepped into the musty gloom. She locked the door behind her and crept stealthily through an eerie ward of empty beds with bare mattresses. Spooked by the dimness of the ward, the festoons of cobwebs and its gloomy shadows, Marissa stopped at the nurses’ desk and found her supply of candles. With the help of a lighting flint she managed to get a candle lit, but a sudden gust of wind blew through a broken window and snuffed the flame out. With shaking hands, she grabbed all the candles and lit the lot.
Marissa sat for a few minutes watching the candle flames burn bright. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and then opened the bag of Kraan and looked at the little red beads inside. They shone in the candlelight like hundreds of knowing little eyes staring at her. Fear stole over Marissa like a dark cloud. She felt as though the beads were ganging up on her, whispering to one another, laughing, plotting . . . She shoved the bag of Kraan into a drawer and slammed it shut.
A wave of exhaustion engulfed Marissa. She lay down on the nearest bed, pulled its blanket around her and fell asleep, leaving the forest of candles burning merrily.
CHARM SCHOOL
That afternoon, when Tod came into the Charm Library on the tenth floor of the Wizard Tower, she found Jo-Jo Heap leafing through the Global Charm Index. That was strange, she thought. Jo-Jo was not a frequent visitor to the Wizard Tower.
Jo-Jo looked up and saw a girl, tall for her age, with brilliant green eyes and her dark hair cut short except for a long, neatly plaited elflock. She wore leggings and a short jacket in regulation Apprentice green, and around her waist was a battered but impressive thick silver belt. “Oh, hi, Tod,” Jo-Jo said.
“Hello, Jo-Jo,” Tod replied coolly. She found Jo-Jo the least likable of the six brothers of her tutor, Septimus Heap. Although Jo-Jo was almost four years older than Septimus, he did not seem very grown-up. He hung out with the more unpleasant Apprentices in the Wizard Tower, and Tod knew he was friendly with Newt Makken and his brother, Drammer, another first year Apprentice. Drammer was no friend to Tod. He blamed her for taking away his chance to be in the prestigious Apprentice Sled Race and never missed an opportunity to taunt her for not finishing the race.
But the Makken brothers were nothing compared to Jo-Jo’s ex-girlfriend: a witch named Marissa. Marissa had recently put the lives of Tod and her two friends, Ferdie and Oskar Sarn, in great danger, and the Wizard Tower gossip was that Marissa and Jo-Jo were back together. Tod had no wish to be in the same space with someone who had anything to do with Marissa. If she had not had a tutorial with the Charm Wizard, Rose, she would have walked straight out and not come back until Jo-Jo had gone.
But Rose was already coming out of the inner Charm Chamber. A fairly new Ordinary Wizard, Rose still wore her blue robes with a sense of pride. As Charm Wizard she had her specialist’s symbols embroidered on the sleeves, which were edged with a darker blue ribbon. Tall, with her long brown hair neatly plaited into a braid that hung down to her waist, Rose brought a sense of calm wherever she went. Her light green eyes lit up with pleasure at seeing Tod. “Hello, Tod. I’ve been looking forward to this all morning.”
Rose held open the beautifully painted door to the Charm Chamber and a waft of chilly air came out. Tod stepped inside the icy chamber—but not before she had caught a sidelong scowl from Jo-Jo. Rose closed the door behind them and quietly slid the lock across. “Good, he’s out of the way. Now, Tod, are you wearing your Charm bracelets?”
Tod held up both wrists to show Rose two broad pink bands. These helped counteract the low temperature needed to keep the older Charms stable.
“Well remembered,” Rose replied. “Would you like a FizzFroot?”
“Oh, yes, please.”
Tod loved the Charm Chamber. It made her feel as if she had been wrapped up in a huge, multicolored patchwork quilt; although in reality it was a highly organized twelve-sided room in which resided every known example of Charms. The quilt effect was the result of the hundreds of tiny lockers that lined the walls. They were stacked from floor to ceiling, each one painted with different patterns and colors. Tod had a breathless feeling of excitement when she thought about all the Magykal possibilities they contained.
Tod followed Rose past the Charm desk—twelve-sided, rich with complex wooden inlays in which all the keys to the Charm lockers were kept—and headed through a door set within the wall of cupboards. The door was painted to look as though it too were made of cupboards. The very first time that Tod had visited the Charm Chamber Rose had gone through the door without her noticing. Tod had looked up to find that Rose had apparently vanished.
The trompe l’oeil door led to Rose’s private office—a small room with a window looking out over the Forest. It contained a writing desk, two chairs, a tiny sink and a Magykal FlickFyre burner on which sat a neat little copper kettle.
“Sit yourself down, Tod,” Rose said. She clicked her fingers at the burner and told it: “Light!” and then perused the jars set above the sink, each containing small cubes of various colors. “I’ve got blue banana, pink grape, red pineapple and, er . . . something green with orange spots.”
“Green with orange spots, please,” said Tod. She watched Rose take the FizzBom cube from its jar, place it in a jug and pour hot water over it. The water fizzed up into a dark brown froth, and Rose carefully poured it into two glasses. They waited for the bubbles to settle and then drank the ice-cold fizz.
“That is weird,” Rose said. “It tastes of . . . um . . .”
“Chocolate orange,” said Tod. “With a tang of mint.”
“So it does,” Rose said. She put her glass down and leaned closer to Tod. “I’d like your opinion about Jo-Jo. He’s up to something, I know he is. Every time I try to see what he’s reading, he covers it with his arm. If I ask him if he needs help finding anything, he just grunts. He’s cross because I won’t let him in the Charm Cupboard without a permit.” Rose sighed. “He seems to think that because he’s Sep’s—I mean the ExtraOrdinary Wizard’s—brother he can go anywhere he wants in the Wizard Tower. But he’s only got basic clearance, and he’s lucky to have that if you ask me, given the people he associates with.” Rose took a gulp of FizzFroot. “I’m sorry, Tod. This is your time, for you to learn about Charms, not for me to dump my work worries on you.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Tod said. And she didn’t. She liked Rose very much and was flattered to be taken into her confidence.
Rose stood up. “Enough of Jo-Jo Heap,” she said. “We’ve got far more important things to think about. Now, Tod, one of the most interesting—and tricky—things about Charms is the choosing of them. Of course if you only have one Charm available, then there is no choice, but if you find yourself in a Charm library—and there are many around the world—you will discover that there are hundreds of different Charms for the same thing. The skill is in choosing the right one. You have to learn to Listen to what they tell you. Let’s have a go, shall we?”
Intrigued, Tod followed Rose back into the Charm Chamber. Rose opened the central panel of the
desktop to reveal a series of concentric circles of tiny keys lying on faded blue felt—one for each Charm Locker. Tod was amazed that Rose knew precisely which locker each key fit.
Despite there being so many keys, not one had a twin. Some were gold, some silver, some battered, some shiny and new. The bows were an array of all possible shapes and designs—bejeweled, incised, filigreed, enameled or just plain—and they all lay beneath Tod’s gaze as she wondered what possibilities they held.
After some minutes Rose said, “So, Tod, are you drawn to any particular key?”
There was indeed one key to which Tod’s gaze had repeatedly returned. She had tried to ignore it, for it was by no means the most interesting and certainly not the most beautiful. But the key seemed to be jumping out at her. Tod pointed to a simple blackened key made of pitted metal, its bow an uneven five-pointed star. It lay in the innermost circle. “That one.”
“Then you must take it,” Rose said.
Tod lifted the key from its bed and put it carefully in the flat of her palm just as Rose had shown her on her first visit.
“Very nicely handled,” Rose remarked. “It’s so sad to see some of the keys with the finer work snapped off. Now I shall leave it to you to figure out which locker this opens.” Rose saw Tod’s look of dismay. “But I’ll give you a clue first,” she said. “It is in the inner ring; therefore it is an ancient Charm. Do you remember where their section is?”
“Up there.” Tod pointed to the top circle of lockers that ran all the way around the chamber just below the ceiling.
“Well done. Use the ladder and make notes on each one. Then you can decide which cupboard the key fits. If you get it right, you can use the Charm.”
“I can actually use it?” Tod asked.
“Why not?” Rose smiled. “I know you’re careful. But the deal is you’ll have to get the locker right the first time. Okay?”
“Wow. Yes, totally okay!”
Rose took the key and placed it on a red velvet pad in the center of the table. Then she sat quietly updating the Charm index while Tod methodically trundled the ladder around the circle of lockers, running up and down, making notes and drawing sketches of all the lockers. At last she was finished. She had a shortlist of three, which she showed to Rose.
