Simon, who had been trying to unblock a drain, emerged from the shadows, wiping his hands on his tunic.

“Si, Marcellus is here to see you,” said Lucy.

Simon smiled. “Good evening, Marcellus. Good to see you. Would you like some tea?”

Marcellus, a fastidious man, had decided it might be safer not to risk the tea. “Your good lady wife . . .”

Lucy, still not used to being called Simon’s wife, giggled.

“. . . kindly offered me some, but I mustn’t stay long. I have a proposition to put to you, Simon.”

Lucy and Simon looked at each other.

Simon cleared a pile of plates off a rickety chair. “Please, do sit down, Marcellus.”

Marcellus saw the sticky ring left on the chair and shook his head. “No, no. I really must get back. This won’t take a moment.”

Five minutes later Simon and Lucy watched Marcellus Pye cross the snowy slipway back to his house, the moonlight glinting off the gold fastenings on the back of his shoes.

Simon was lost for words. In his hand was a precious copy of the Alchemist’s oeuvre, the I, Marcellus, with instructions to read it thoroughly and meet Marcellus at six o’clock the following evening.

“Well,” said Lucy. “Who’d have thought it?”

15

THE LAST DAY

Septimus awoke early in his little bedroom at the top of the house on Snake Slipway. Outside the snow was falling fast and the room was dull with the gray winter morning light. He lit his bedside candle and leaned back against the pillow, reluctant to get out of bed. That was one thing he would not miss. The Wizard Tower was always a perfect temperature. Marcellus’s house was, like all old Castle houses during the Big Freeze, bitterly cold.

An hour later Septimus was with Marcellus in an old lock-up at the end of Gold Button Drop—a dead-end alleyway just off the end of Alchemie Way. The lock-up was a cover for a secret entrance to Alchemie Quay, which Marcellus had recently reopened. After locking the little iron door behind them, Marcellus pulled open the circular manhole cover in the center of the earthen floor. A glow of red light shone upward, lighting the rough stones of the lock-up’s conical roof. Carefully, Marcellus unhooked a small Fyre Globe from its peg just below the manhole cover, clipped it onto his belt, and began the descent down the iron rungs set into the brick chimney. Septimus swung himself in after Marcellus and pulled the trapdoor shut with a clang.

There followed a long descent down a brick-lined shaft, eerily lit with the red light from the Globe. Eventually Marcellus and Septimus reached a wide, brick-lined tunnel and set off along it. Some minutes later, they emerged into the first curve of the Labyrinth, but instead of turning left, as they normally did for the Great Chamber, Marcellus turned right and led Septimus out onto Alchemie Quay.

“It is your last day, Apprentice,” Marcellus said.

“It is,” agreed Septimus, wondering what Marcellus had in mind. He hoped it was going to be more interesting than cleaning sand out from cupboards with a toothbrush.

“Septimus,” said Marcellus. “I wish to apologize for sending you off on a wild-goose chase to collect the Cloud Flask. I needed time to think.”

“Oh?” said Septimus.

“Indeed. And your absence made me realize how much I valued you. I have made an error in not telling you everything that I am doing here.”

“Ah,” said Septimus, not entirely surprised.

Marcellus took a deep breath, aware that he was taking an irrevocable step. “I want to show you the Fyre,” he said.

Septimus did not understand. “But you haven’t lit it yet.”

“Apprentice, the furnace that you see in the Great Chamber is a decoy. The true Fyre has already begun.”

Suddenly things began to make sense. “Where?”

“Come. I will explain.” Marcellus led Septimus over to the edge of the Quay, where the pink paddleboat bobbed quietly, tethered to its ring. Marcellus kept it just in case—an Alchemist always had an emergency escape route. The UnderFlow Pool lay dark at their feet and the familiar feeling of vertigo that always got to Septimus when he stood on the edge of the UnderFlow Pool made him feel dizzy.

“See the currents in the water?” asked Marcellus.

Septimus nodded.

“A hundred feet down from here is a sluice gate. Some weeks ago I opened it. Now water is flowing through it, pouring down a channel bored through the rock to a reservoir far below. This is the water that is making the Fyre.”

“But water doesn’t make Fyre,” said Septimus.

“Alchemical Fyre is different,” said Marcellus. “It is a beautiful, living thing. And life needs water. Before you leave me, Septimus, I want you to see it. So that when you return to the Wizard Tower, you will understand that whatever they may tell you about the Fyre, it is not true.”