Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [111]
The Hunter, still poised outside the kitchen door, regarded Jenna with a baleful stare as she appeared. His piercing pale blue eyes locked on to her and followed her across the room. But the rest of him was as immobile as ever.
Jenna felt the stare and glanced up. A cold shiver shot through her. “He’s looking at me,” she said. “His eyes are following me.”
“Bother,” tutted Aunt Zelda. “He’s beginning to DeFrost. I’d better take this before it causes any more trouble.”
Aunt Zelda pulled the silver pistol out of the Hunter’s Frozen hand. His eyes flashed angrily as she expertly broke open the gun and removed a small silver ball from its chamber.
“Here you are,” Aunt Zelda said, handing the silver bullet to Jenna. “It has been looking for you for ten years, and now its search is over. You are safe now.”
Jenna smiled uncertainly and rolled the solid silver sphere around her palm with a sense of revulsion; although, she could not help but admire how perfect it was. Almost perfect. She lifted it up and squinted at a tiny nick in the ball. To her surprise there were two letters carved into the silver: I.P.
“What’s I.P. mean?” Jenna asked Aunt Zelda. “Look, it’s here on the bullet.”
Aunt Zelda did not reply for a moment. She knew what the letters meant, but she was unsure about telling Jenna.
“I.P.,” murmured Jenna, thinking it over. “I.P….”
“Infant Princess,” said Aunt Zelda. “A named bullet. A named bullet will always find its target. It doesn’t matter how or when, but find you it will. As yours has done. But not in the way they intended.”
“Oh,” said Jenna quietly. “So the other one, the one for my mother, did it have…”
“Yes, it did. It had Q on it.”
“Ah. Can I keep the pistol too?” asked Jenna.
Aunt Zelda looked surprised. “Well, I suppose so,” she said. “If you really want to.”
Jenna took the gun and held it as she had seen both the Hunter and the Assassin do, feeling its heavy weight in her hand and the strange sense of power holding it gave her.
“Thank you,” she said to Aunt Zelda, handing the pistol back to her. “Can you keep it safe for me. For now?”
The Hunter’s eyes followed Aunt Zelda as she marched the pistol off to her Unstable Potions and Partikular Poisons cupboard and locked it away. They followed her back again as she walked up to him and felt his ears. The Hunter looked furious. His eyebrows twitched, and his eyes flashed angrily, but nothing else moved.
“Good,” said Aunt Zelda, “his ears are still Frozen. He can’t hear what we say yet. We’ve got to decide what we’ll do with him before he DeFrosts.”
“Can’t you just ReFreeze him?” asked Jenna.
Aunt Zelda shook her head. “No,” she replied regretfully. “You shouldn’t ReFreeze someone once they start to DeFrost. It’s not safe for them. They can get Freezer Burn. Or else go horribly soggy. Not a nice sight. But still, the Hunter’s a dangerous man and he won’t give up the Hunt. Ever. And somehow we have to stop him hunting us.”
Jenna was thinking.
“We need,” she said, “to make him forget everything. Even who he is.” She chuckled. “We could make him think he’s a lion tamer or something.”
“And then he’d join a circus and find out that he wasn’t, just after he’d put his head into a lion’s mouth,” Nicko finished.
“We must not use Magyk to endanger life,” Aunt Zelda reminded them.
“He could be a clown, then,” said Jenna. “He’s scary enough.”
“Well, I have heard there’s a circus due in the Port any day now. I’m sure he’d find work.” Aunt Zelda smiled. “They take all sorts, I’m told.”
Aunt Zelda fetched an old, tattered book called Magyk Memories.
“You’re good at this,” she said, handing the book to Boy 412. “Can you find the right Charm for me? I think it’s called Rogue Recollections.”
Boy 412 leafed though the musty old book. It was one of those where most of the Charms had been lost, but toward the end of the book he found what he was looking for: a small, knotted handkerchief with some smudgy black writing along the hem.
“Good,” said Aunt Zelda. “Perhaps you could do the spell for us, please?”
“Me?” asked Boy 412, surprised.
“If you