“Marcia’s not there,” said Septimus despairingly. “She would let us in if she was. It must be the Ring Wizards.”

Another—mercifully small—wave washed up to their mouths and set them coughing and spluttering.

“Marcia! Let us in, for pity’s sake!” yelled Marcellus. “We are drowning!”

“That settles it,” said Julius. “It is the Ring Wizards. They have Marcellus hostage.”

Jenna, Septimus and Marcellus clutched one another. In a moment they would be gone—washed down the Ice Tunnels to begin an endless circuit in the currents like three Ice Wraiths.

Jenna gave one last desperate scream. “Heeeeeelp!”

“Marcia,” said Milo. “That was Jenna. I know my child.”

“And I know mine,” said Marcia. “I mean—I know Septimus. Be quiet, Julius.” With that she UnSealed the door.

A great wave of freezing water swept through the Seal, bringing with it three half-drowned people and Septimus’s Wizard Tower sledge, which Passed Through the ghost of Julius Pike like a blade of cold steel. The wave surged out of the broom cupboard and deposited Jenna, Septimus and Marcellus like stranded fish on the floor of the Great Hall. On and on the water came, until the combined efforts of Marcia and as many Wizards who could fit into the broom cupboard managed to Stop it. Then, while the water lay gently swashing to and fro, a dripping wet Marcia rapidly repaired the Seal.

Shattered, Septimus, Jenna and Marcellus could do nothing more than collapse onto the padded bench outside the Stranger Chamber and watch the Wizards Sweep the water out from the Great Hall, sending it cascading down the marble steps into the Courtyard, where it slowly drained away.

Dripping wet, wringing her cloak out as she splashed across the Wizard Tower floor, Marcia came hurrying toward them, relief that they were safe written across her face. She kneeled down beside Jenna and Septimus and grasped their hands, shocked how icy cold they were. “You did your best,” she said, consolingly. “And that is all you can do.”

Septimus knew that Marcia thought they had never made it to Hotep-Ra, but neither he nor Jenna had the energy to explain. Septimus nudged Marcellus. “Rabbit,” he said.

Too exhausted to speak, Marcellus nodded. He pulled the dripping pink rabbit from his pouch and wordlessly he handed it to Marcia.

46

SHOWDOWN

Dark columns of smoke were rising into the sky, each one a family’s home or livelihood going up in flames. In the very center stood the Alchemie Chimney with a massive plume of black smoke belching from it, like a Witch Mother on a midnight moot conducting her acolytes as they danced around her.

The breeze blowing at the top of the Wizard Tower brought with it the acrid smell of smoke but up there, Septimus had other things on his mind. With the Flyte Charm clutched tightly in one hand and the Reduced top of the pyramid in the other, he was lying facedown, hovering at arm’s length above the flat silver platform of the pyramid roof, on which the decoy hieroglyphs were incised. He must not—Hotep-Ra had impressed this upon him—make contact with the silver. If he did, the Keye would not work.

Hotep-Ra had told Septimus that he had stored his twenty-one Incantations inside the pyramid roof of the Wizard Tower. They were filed in order of use, with—he thought—the most recently used one at the top, so the Committal should be the very first one to Appear. If it didn’t, then that meant he had stored them back to front and it would be the very last to Appear. Septimus must then scroll through by lifting the little pyramid Keye off its indentation and replacing it. Every time he did this, another Incantation would Appear.

Very carefully, Septimus dropped the little gold pyramid into the Lock—the square indentation in the center of the hieroglyphs that had puzzled him and so many generations of Wizards and Apprentices before him. The little pyramid fitted the Lock exactly—just as a Keye should. Immediately, a symbol appeared on the blank silver square on top of the Keye, and Septimus felt heat rising from the silver platform. As he backed away, Septimus watched in awe as the meaningless hieroglyphs below began to dissolve and become words that he could understand: A Riddance for the Smell of Pig.

Septimus read the words and his heart sank—the Incantations were in reverse order. Pushing to one side the question as to why the first Incantation Hotep-Ra ever did in the Castle was for getting rid of pig smells, Septimus lifted up the pyramid Keye. The jumbled hieroglyphs returned and the top of the Keye became blank once more. He dropped the Keye back into the Lock and up came another symbol on its top and on the platform, the next Incantation: A Healing for the Young.