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Chapter 47

The Great UnDoing

Marcia was about to put the Paired Code together. Her tiny study was packed and the atmosphere was electric. Even Nicko, who was not hugely interested in Magyk, was watching intently.

The tiny study window glowed an eerie red with the dimming of the SafeShield, but the study itself was bright with the light from a forest of candles dripping from a tall candelabrum set on Marcia’s desk. Two books—The Undoing of the Darkenesse and The Darke Index—lay open on Marcia’s desk. In the shadow of the books a small silver box and a tiny silver disc rested on a piece of purple velvet.

Alther had a bird’s-eye view. To avoid the danger of being Passed Through, the ghost was sitting on the top step of a library ladder. He was watching the process with great interest. The use of the Paired Code was something Alther had known about in theory only. In his time as ExtraOrdinary Wizard both books that held the keys to deciphering the Code had long been lost. Marcia had found The Undoing of the Darkenesse in Aunt Zelda’s cottage a few years back and she knew that somewhere within its pages lay The Great UnDoing—the legendary Anti-Darke incantation that practitioners of the Darke feared above all else. But its words were spread randomly throughout the book; to find them, the index to the book—The Darke Index—was required.

However, it was not that simple. Uncovering The Great UnDoing required more than merely using an index—it required using the correct pages of the index. This was where the Paired Code came in. In order to know which sections of The Darke Index gave the right sequence of page and word numbers in The Undoing of the Darkenesse, the Paired Code had to be read. Correctly.

And now that was about to happen. Under the rapt attention of Silas, Septimus, Jenna and Nicko—and the perching Alther—Marcia began to put the Paired Code together.

Marcia lifted out the Wizard Tower half of the Code and placed it on the velvet square on which its Pair—recently used to much less salubrious surroundings—lay waiting. She picked up the much smaller Manuscriptorium Code and placed its boss into the central indentation of the Wizard Tower Code. There was a brilliant blue spark and suddenly the Manuscriptorium Code was floating a fraction of a millimeter above the Wizard Tower Code. The Manuscriptorium Code now began to spin. Slowly at first, then faster and faster it went until it was no more than a flash of spinning light. There was a sharp click and the spinning disc stopped dead.

Everyone craned their heads for a closer look. The discs seemed to have fused into one and it was clear that the lines that radiated out from the Manuscriptorium Code joined up with some of those on the Wizard Tower Code. Each one of these led to a symbol. There was an awed hush. These were the symbols that would begin The Great UnDoing that would UnDo the Darke Domaine and set the Castle free.

Marcia got out her Enlarging Glass and peered at the symbols.

“Ready, Septimus?” she asked.

In his hand Septimus had his precious Apprentice diary, his pen poised at the top of a clean page. “Ready,” he said.

The red glow from the failing SafeShield was beginning to fill the study, drowning out the candlelight. It fell on the smooth, blank page of Septimus’s diary and cast threatening shadows across the room. Septimus knew it would not be long before the SafeShield was breached—it could happen any minute now, he thought. He waited, poised to write down the sequence of symbols that would lead them to The Great UnDoing. Why didn’t Marcia begin reading out the symbols? There was no time to lose.

Jenna had guessed why but she hoped—desperately—that she was wrong. Unable to bear the suspense, she decided to test out her new Right to Know.

“But Marcia, how do you know which symbol to start with?”

Aware that she now had to answer all the Princess-in-Waiting’s questions “truthfully, fully and without delay,” Marcia looked