A thrill of excitement ran through Septimus. He and Spit Fyre were going to make Fyre for real, not some practice run trying to hit the metal Fyre target in the Dragon Field. This was actually going to do something—it was going to open the Dragon House. He steadied Spit Fyre and patted his neck. “Ignite!” he yelled.

A deep rumble began inside Spit Fyre’s fire stomach, taking the phosphorus from the bones that Septimus had hastily fed him on his way to the boatyard, and turning it into the gases that would combine to make Fyre. The plume of gas swept up through Spit Fyre’s fire gullet and hit the air where it spontaneously Ignited with a loud whuuuuuumph. A thin, blindingly bright jet of Fyre streamed from the dragon’s mouth and hit the very center of the gold disc. The disc began to glow and turn from a dull gold to a dusky orange, to bright red, to a blinding white. Then there was a sudden flash of brilliant purple, which caused everyone to flinch and shut their eyes—Spit Fyre included.

When the watchers beside the Cut opened their eyes there was a collective sharp intake of breath. The wall was gone and the Dragon House was revealed: a towering lapis lazuli–domed cavern, covered in golden hieroglyphs. And below, held fast within clear blue ice, lay the Dragon Boat, her head resting on a marble walkway, where it had been laid almost three years earlier.

A sudden shout came from below. Septimus looked down to see Jenna running toward the Dragon House.

“She’s covered in ice!” he heard Jenna yell. “She’s dead.”

12

THE CHAMBER OF THE HEART

Septimus landed Spit Fyre on the broad space above the Dragon House where Jenna had listened for the dragon’s heartbeat. It wasn’t until Spit Fyre touched the ground that Septimus realized that what he had thought was a cleared patch of snow was in fact black ice. Spit Fyre’s feet disappeared from under him. He landed with a thud on his well-padded stomach and slid at great speed toward the battlements. A moment later the battlements were gone, sending an avalanche of stones thundering down to the Cut. It was only Spit Fyre’s talons digging into the ice—and a superb piece of tail-braking—that stopped Septimus and his dragon from following the stones into the Cut below.

A delighted face in an attic window watched the scene. “Gramma, Gramma, it’s Spit Fyre! Gramma, look!” yelled the boy.

His grandmother was less thrilled. “That tail could put all the windows out,” she said.

Septimus slipped down from the Pilot Dip and patted the dragon’s nose. “Well done, Spit Fyre. Go home!”

But Spit Fyre didn’t want to go home. He could see that there was another dragon right beneath his feet and he wanted to meet it. He thumped his tail in disapproval.

The little boy in the attic squealed with excitement. His grandmother threw open the window. “Careful!” she yelled.

“Sorry!” Septimus shouted. He looked at his stubborn dragon and a whisper of the Synchronicity between him and Spit Fyre came back—now he understood why Spit Fyre wanted to stay. Septimus put his hand to his ear, which was the sign that told Spit Fyre to listen. Spit Fyre dutifully dropped his head down so that Septimus could talk at dragon-ear height.

“Spit Fyre. The dragon is very ill. She may even be dying. If you stay you must be very quiet. You must not move. No tail thumping, no claw scratching, no snorting, no anything. Do you understand?”

Spit Fyre blinked twice in assent. Then he lay down on the ice and mournfully rested his head over the parapet: a dying dragon was a terrible thing. Septimus patted Spit Fyre’s neck and left his dragon to be watched over by a nervous grandmother and her excited grandson.

With Jenna’s cry of “she’s dead” still echoing in his head, Septimus raced down a narrow flight of stone steps that led to the opposite side of the Cut. As he made his way along the foot of the wall toward the Dragon House, a faint movement and a slight cooling of the air told Septimus that he was walking through a throng of ghosts. And from the restrained, somewhat regal atmosphere he guessed they were ancient Queens and Princesses, anxiously watching.

Septimus moved slowly through the ghosts toward the open mouth of the Dragon House. He now saw what Spit Fyre’s Fyre had revealed. It was eerily beautiful. The Dragon Boat, stark white against the deep blue lapis of the Dragon House, lay deathly still, encased in a frosting of ice. A shaft of light from the winter sun glanced in and made the ice sparkle with such movement that for a moment Septimus thought that all was well and the Dragon Boat was breathing. But the concerned faces of Marcellus and Jenna—and even Jannit Maarten—on the opposite side of the Cut told him otherwise.