“That’s three things, Marcia,” Alther pointed out.

“What?”

“Nothing. Sorry, just being pedantic.”

“Alther, can’t you at least try to be helpful?” Marcia was still annoyed with Alther for insisting they include Marcellus and Simon.

Alther floated around the end of the desk and settled himself onto an empty shelf. “I’ve been going to the Mystery Readings recently—you know, in the Little Theater in the Ramblings. They read a mystery story every week.”

Marcia looked confused. If Alther had still been alive she would have suspected that he was going a little peculiar, but that could not happen to a ghost. A ghost remained as sane—or crazy—as he or she was on the day they entered ghosthood. And Alther had been absolutely fine on that day.

Marcia impatiently tapped the end of her pencil on the desk. “Well, Alther, I’m glad you are getting out and about. Now, please, we must get on.”

“Yes, quite. So you see, every Mystery Reading begins with the audience being told a mystery—”

“Alther, enough!”

“Marcia, be patient. I am trying to explain. The person on stage tells us the mystery. Then two more people appear. One is clever, and the other is . . . well, not so clever, shall we say. The not-so-clever person is involved in the mystery in some way but they don’t understand the significance of what they know or have seen. So the clever person makes the not-so-clever person tell them every little detail that happened. And then the clever person works out the solution purely from what the not-so-clever person has told them. Or even gets the not-so-clever person to work it out for themselves. It’s very interesting.”

Marcia looked displeased. “I think I know where this is going.”

Alther had a distinct feeling that he had not explained things as well as he could have, but he plowed on. “So, Marcia, if you tell us everything that happened today, no matter how insignificant it may have seemed to you—”

“As the not-so-clever person.”

“No! Goodness, Marcia, I don’t mean that at all.”

“Well, I seem to be fitting the part rather nicely. Which makes you, Alther, the clever person, who will soon be able to tell us where the Two-Faced Ring is. Right?”

“Not necessarily. But it might help us think. Besides, Beetle needs to hear everything that happened. As do Marcellus and Simon.”

“You could have just said that in the first place, Alther. It would have saved you a lot of trouble. I am quite happy to go over everything for Beetle.”

“Jolly good, Marcia. I suggest you begin at the beginning. When you woke up this morning.”

Marcia took a deep breath. The morning felt a very long time ago. “I woke up late. I’d had my usual bad dream over and over again and I hadn’t slept at all well.”

“Describe your dream,” said Alther.

“No, Alther. That’s witchy stuff. Dreams are not important.”

“Everything is important,” Alter insisted.

“Oh, very well. It’s the usual horrible dream. I’ve been having it since we discovered those puddles. There is some kind of fire under the Castle.”

Septimus gave a start of surprise and Marcellus flashed him a warning glance.

Marcia, lost in her dream, did not notice. “I keep trying to put the fire out, but just as I think I have, I see flames coming up through the floor of the Wizard Tower. It gets hotter and hotter and then I wake up.” Marcia shuddered. “It doesn’t sound like much, but it is not nice.”

“And then?” prompted the clever one.

“Well, I was not happy about waking up so late. I went straight downstairs and into the kitchen. Septimus had just come down from doing the hieroglyphs and he asked if I wanted some porridge but I wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t shake off the dream. I knew it was silly, but I had to go down to the Great Hall to check there were no flames coming up through the floor.” Marcia laughed, embarrassed. “And of course there weren’t. But I still felt something was not quite right so I decided to go and check on the Seal before I went back upstairs. As soon as I went into the lobby, I knew something was wrong—Edmund and Ernold were on Seal Watch.”

“What was wrong with that?” asked the clever one.

“Plenty. First, they were not on the rota for that morning. Second, Silas was not supervising, as he was meant to do. Third, they looked . . . weird.”

“They always look weird,” said Septimus, who had not taken to his uncles.