Septimus Heap, Book Six_ Darke - Angie Sage [11]
Suddenly aware of how cold she was, Jenna slipped out from behind the curtains and went over to the fire, where three huge logs were blazing in the ancient stone fireplace. And as she stood holding her hands out to warm in front of the crackling fire, Jenna wondered what Septimus was talking to Alice about. She knew that even if she asked him he wouldn’t tell her.
It wasn’t only Alice who had lost someone, Jenna thought sadly.
Chapter 4
Apprentices
The morning of his fourteenth birthday, Septimus was up before dawn. Quickly he cleaned and tidied the Pyramid Library—as he did every morning, even on his birthday. He found an unwrapped present from Marcia hidden under a pile of books to be filed. It was a small but very beautiful gold and silver Enlarging Glass. Attached to its ivory handle was a purple tag, which read: To Septimus. Happy Magykal Fourteenth Birthday. With love from Marcia. Septimus put the Glass in his pocket with a smile. It wasn’t often that Marcia signed her name “with love.”
Some minutes later the heavy purple door that guarded the entrance to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard’s rooms swung open, and Septimus headed for the silver spiral stairs at the end of the landing, setting off on a visit he had made every day since he had returned from the Isles of Syren. Taking a chance that there were no Wizards about so early, he put the stairs into emergency mode and whizzed down to the seventh floor. Dizzy but exhilarated—there was nothing quite like an emergency run to wake one up—Septimus stepped off the stairs and walked a little unsteadily along a dimly lit corridor toward a door marked ICK BAY (the S having recently evaporated during an Ordinary Apprentice’s spell that had gone wrong).
The ICK BAY door opened quietly and Septimus stepped into a dimly lit, circular room with ten beds arranged around the wall like the numbers on a clockface. Only two of the beds were occupied—one by a Wizard who had fallen down the Wizard Tower steps and broken her toe, the other by an elderly Wizard who had “felt a bit funny” the previous day. Two of the clockface spaces were taken by doors—one that Septimus had just come through and another, at the seven o’clock space, leading away from the sick bay. In the center was a circular desk, in the middle of which sat the night duty Wizard and the new sick bay Apprentice, Rose. Rose, her long brown hair tucked behind her ears, was busy as ever, scribbling in her project book and devising new Charms.
Septimus approached. Rose and the Wizard gave him friendly smiles. They knew him well, for he visited every day—although usually not so early.
“No change,” whispered Rose.
Septimus nodded. He had long given up expecting to hear anything different.
Rose got up from her chair. It was her job to escort visitors to the DisEnchanting Chamber. Septimus followed her over to the narrow door set in the wall at the seven o’clock space. Its surface had a shifting quality to it, typical of the effect that strong Wizard Tower Magyk produced. Rose placed her hand on the surface and quickly withdrew it, leaving a fleeting purple handprint behind. The door swung open, then she and Septimus stepped into an antechamber. The door closed behind them and Rose repeated the process with another door in front of them. It too swung open, and this time Septimus alone walked through. He entered a small pentagonal room suffused with a deep blue light.
“I’ll leave you now,” whispered Rose. “Call me if there’s anything you need or . . . well, if there’s any change.”
Septimus nodded.
There was a heady smell of Magyk in the chamber, for within it a gentle DisEnchanting force was allowed to run free. The force circled counterclockwise, and Septimus could feel it warm upon his skin, tingling like drying salt water after a swim in the ocean. He stood still and breathed in deeply a few times