“Oh!” Beetle blushed. “Well, thank you.”

The pair walked up the middle of the newly named Alchemie Way, making fresh footprints on the snow. The Way stretched out before them, empty, wide and lit only by the brightness of the snow reflecting the moonlight. Near the Palace it was particularly desolate. Here once was the Young Army Barracks, now boarded up and falling into ruin. Beetle and Marcia hurried by and the army buildings soon gave way to large houses, which were equally run-down and, at that time of night, dark and quiet. Many of the houses had boarded-up shopfronts on the ground floor. These were shops that had once serviced the thriving industry generated by the Great Chamber of Alchemie. But after the Great Chamber was closed down, the life went out of Alchemie Way and it had become an empty, windswept place—only to be briefly revived as the drilling ground for the Young Army and a venue for the lavish processions and displays that the Supreme Custodian enjoyed holding.

Beetle found it eerie and sad. He was pleased when a lantern hanging from a post showed the entrance to Saarson’s Scurry, the alley he was looking for. The Scurry, as it was commonly known, was much more cheerful. It was clearly occupied by sociable night owls: a hum of conversation and the merry clink of glasses drifted out of the tiny but well-kept houses. Lighted candles in the windows reflected off the snow and lit their path. A short distance into the alley, Beetle came to a halt by a puddle of water lying incongruously in the snow. Marcia crouched down and dipped her finger in the water. She looked anxiously up at Beetle. “How many of these did you say there were?”

“There are eight that I know about.”

Marcia made a teeth-sucking noise. “And you think they are all—what did you call them . . . vents?”

Beetle nodded. “Yes. Apparently it’s a system of cooling.”

“Really? What does it cool?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” said Beetle. “I don’t know. Romilly Badger found an old plan and—” A movement caught his eye. He looked around and saw three amazed faces at a window, staring out at the sight of the Chief Hermetic Scribe and the ExtraOrdinary Wizard inspecting a puddle outside their front door. “Best if I tell you as we go, I think.”

“Oh?”

Beetle nodded toward the window.

“Ah.” To the shock of the onlookers, Marcia—still buzzing from the excitement of the evening—gave them a cheery wave. Then she put her arm around Beetle’s shoulders and said, in a manner reminiscent of Milo Banda, “Righty-ho, Beetle. Fire away.”

As they wandered along the snowy alleyways, heading toward Wizard Way, Beetle began to explain.

“Frankly, Marcia, the Manuscriptorium is in a real mess and we don’t know where half the stuff is. I decided to recatalogue everything, and last week I began with the Vaults. I was shocked. There are piles of paper all over the floor and in the tunnel section there’s a stack of stuff that’s been left to rot in a pool of water, which even Ephaniah says he can’t fix.”

“It must be bad,” said Marcia. Ephaniah Grebe was the Manuscriptorium’s Conservation Scribe, who was known to be able to restore pretty much anything.

“It is,” said Beetle. “We have lost an awful lot of information about what’s beneath the Castle. Anyway, I started with the Ice Tunnel shelves and I got Romilly Badger—she’s the Inspection Clerk—to help because I wanted her to understand as much as possible about them. You wouldn’t believe it, but she hadn’t even been given a proper map.”

“Unfortunately, I would believe it,” said Marcia.

“Yes. Well. So, after she had cleared the shelves Romilly found a scrunched-up piece of paper wedged down the back of one of them. It was black with soot and very fragile, and I couldn’t shake off the feeling that it was important. Luckily Ephaniah said he could fix that one.”

“And how is Ephaniah?” asked Marcia.

“He’s getting stronger now. Still gets nightmares, I think.”

“That, unfortunately, is to be expected,” said Marcia.

They had reached Terry Tarsal’s shoe shop and Marcia stopped a moment to peer through the door and see what was on the shelves inside. Something rocked under her feet.

“Careful!” said Beetle. “There’s another one!”

Marcia leaped nimbly onto firmer ground. “At least Terry’s had the sense to put something over it,” she said, poking the wobbly piece of wood with her foot. “That makes nine, then. Tell me, Beetle, what is on this bit of paper?”