Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [91]
“No,” she whispered. “I still hope you will change your mind and decide to be my Apprentice. Think about it while I’m away. Now, it’s one minute to midnight. Stand back.”
The air around Marcia grew cold, and a shiver of strong Magyk swept around her and filled the air with an electric charge. Boy 412 retreated to the fireside, a little scared but fascinated too. Marcia closed her eyes and started to mutter something long and complicated in a language he had never heard before, and as he watched, Boy 412 saw the same Magykal haze appear that he had first seen when he was sitting in Muriel in the Deppen Ditch. Suddenly Marcia threw her cloak over herself so that she was covered from head to toe, and as she did so, the purple of the Magyk haze and the purple of the cloak mixed together. There was a loud hiss, like water dropping onto hot metal, and Marcia disappeared, leaving only a faint shadow that lingered for a few moments.
At the Palace Gate, at twenty minutes past midnight, a platoon of Guards was on duty, just as it had been every night for the past fifty bitterly cold nights. The Guards were frozen and were expecting yet another long boring night doing nothing but stamping their feet and humoring the Supreme Custodian, who had some strange idea that the ex–ExtraOrdinary Wizard was going to turn up right there. Just like that. Of course she never had, and they didn’t expect her to either. But still, every night he sent them out to wait and get their toes frozen into blocks of ice.
So when a faint purple shadow began to emerge in their midst, none of the Guards really believed what was happening.
“It’s her,” one of them whispered, half afraid of the Magyk that suddenly swirled in the air and sent uncomfortable charges of electricity through their black metal helmets. The Guards unsheathed their swords and watched as the hazy shadow composed itself into a tall figure wrapped in the purple cloak of an ExtraOrdinary Wizard.
Marcia Overstrand had Appeared right in the middle of the Supreme Custodian’s trap. She was taken by surprise, and without her KeepSafe and the protection of the Midnight Minutes—for Marcia was twenty minutes late—she was not able to stop the Captain of the Guard from ripping the Akhu Amulet from her neck.
Ten minutes later Marcia was lying at the bottom of Dungeon Number One, which was a deep, dark chimney buried in the foundations of the Castle. Marcia lay stunned, trapped in the middle of a Vortex of Shadows and Shades that DomDaniel had, with great pleasure, set up especially for her. That night was the worst night of Marcia’s life. She lay helpless in a pool of foul water, resting on a pile of bones of the dungeon’s previous occupants, tormented by the moaning and the screaming of the Shadows and Shades that whirled around her and drained her Magykal powers. It was not until the next morning—when, luckily, an Ancient ghost got lost and happened to pass through the wall of Dungeon Number One—that anyone apart from DomDaniel and the Supreme Custodian knew where she was.
The Ancient brought Alther to her, but there was nothing he could do except sit by her and encourage her to stay alive. Alther needed all his powers of persuasion, for Marcia was in despair. In a fit of temper with Silas she knew she had lost everything that Alther had fought for when he deposed DomDaniel. For once again DomDaniel had the Akhu Amulet tied around his fat neck, and it was he, not Marcia Overstrand, who truly was now the ExtraOrdinary Wizard.
31
THE RAT’S RETURN
Aunt Zelda did not possess a timepiece or a clock. Timepieces never worked properly at Keeper’s Cottage;