“Argh, get it off me!” she yelled, batting it away as it circled her head.

“Just keep still, Lu,” said Simon. “It will go away in a minute and look for someone else.” Sure enough, the Lert suddenly switched its attentions to Simon, sending him running back to the door to thump the Alert Off button. The Lert zoomed back into its box, Simon clicked the little door shut and raced back to the kitchen.

“It’s a bit much doing another drill so soon after last night,” Lucy grumbled as she fished two boiled eggs out of a pan. Then she noticed Simon’s expression. “Si . . . what’s the matter?”

“Lu, it’s not a drill.”

“It’s not?”

“Nope. The panel isn’t yellow—it’s red.”

Lucy jumped to her feet. “What’s going on?”

“I dunno, Lu. But I have to go and warn Marcellus. He won’t know a thing about this.”

Lucy was horrified. “Simon, no!”

“I’ll be fine. I’m quite good at looking after myself, you know.”

Lucy sighed. One look at Simon told her she could not stop him. “Oh, Si, be careful.”

Simon took a heavy gold SafeCharm from his pocket—the strongest one he possessed. “Lu, keep hold of this all the time. I will put a Bar on the house when I go. Love you.” Simon gave Lucy a quick kiss and hurried off before she could make him change his mind.

Marcellus was blissfully untroubled by any Lerts. Now that the Fyre was at full strength, he was terrified that it might reveal a new weakness in the Cauldron so, in addition to his regular tapping, he had begun to do visual inspections. In the old days his Drummins had done this, running across the Cauldron like lizards on a hot rock, their suckered fingers and toes taking them wherever they wanted to go, their sharp eyes seeing every detail. But Marcellus had to do it the slow, human way—with spectacles, a ladder and a Fyre Globe.

This morning, Marcellus had dispensed with the ladder and was inspecting underneath the Cauldron. Spectacles firmly clamped onto his nose, he looked up at the circle of light that the Fyre Globe cast onto the Cauldron’s smooth iron surface. Suddenly something caught his eye—a small, lighter-colored circle of metal from which a starburst of skillfully repaired cracks radiated out. Marcellus peered through his Enlarging Glass at the tiny circle. He smiled; it was a typical Drummin repair: a little plug of iron surrounded by a ring of brass solder that glinted red in the light. He ran his fingers lightly over its surface but felt nothing—it was smoothed flat, blended in perfectly with the surrounding darker metal. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. But Marcellus was puzzled. He peered again at the little circle at the center of its web, wondering what could have caused it. It looked almost like a bullet hole, he thought. It was very odd. And then it struck Marcellus—this was the damage that had caused the Great Alchemie Disaster. The sudden certainty took his breath away, and a thousand questions raced through his mind with no hope of an answer. How he would love to be able to ask old Duglius Drummin what had happened. A great wave of sadness washed over Marcellus and he leaned against the rock, taken aback by how very alone he felt without the Drummins.

Suddenly, Marcellus heard the claaaang of the lower Fyre hatch closing and the distinct sound of two sets of heavy footsteps on the top platform. Marcellus was not particularly sensitive to atmosphere, but in his Fyre Chamber his instincts were heightened. And right then his instincts were telling him keep out of the way. Marcellus shrank back into the shadows beneath the Cauldron, wondering who was it? He supposed it was possible that in some kind of emergency Simon had brought Septimus with him. Or even Marcia. But there was something about the footsteps that did not sound like Simon or Septimus—and they certainly did not sound like Marcia. Marcellus realized that for the first time in his life he actually wanted to hear the tippy-tappy sound of Marcia Overstrand’s pointy purple pythons. Things, he thought, must be bad.

Marcellus listened to the protesting squeaks of the ladder as the intruders began to climb down. After what felt like an eternity listening to each step getting closer, a clang reverberating above his head told Marcellus that the intruders had reached the Viewing Station.

Marcellus decided to risk a quick look. Silently, he slipped out from the protection of the Cauldron and looked up. Some thirty feet above, silhouetted against the red light, Marcellus saw a nightmare—two impossibly tall figures wearing cloaks of what he could only describe as dark light, moving and shifting, so that it was impossible to see any boundaries in their form. And beneath the cloaks Marcellus caught a glimpse of iridescent green armor, segmented like the carapace of a giant insect. Like two passengers on a ship, gazing at the sunset, the figures stared down at the brilliant circle of Fyre.