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Part I

On the Beach

A distant bell tolled. On an ancient beach Dan Moon watched a line of flickering lights appear and disappear as they wound through sand dunes, heading toward him. It was three o’clock in the morning on MidSummer’s Day. Holding his own lantern high, Dan stood in the middle of a circle of rugs on the sand, watching the lights move closer. Dan’s bare feet were cold, and despite his heavy black cloak, he shivered in the predawn chill.

Dan saw the first of the lights—flickering candles encased in glass lanterns—emerge from the dunes. It was carried by a dark-cloaked figure who was quickly followed by others. They walked slowly across the sand, heading toward what they called the MidSummer Circle. Silently, one by one they sat down on the rugs, making a circle around Dan.

The dark-cloaked group were not the only ones making their way toward the beach. In the shadows of the dunes the square figure of a woman moved hurriedly along a path she had marked out earlier that day. The woman, Mitza Draddenmora Draa, was late. She had intended to be in her hiding place before everyone began to arrive, but she had been delayed by having to help Dan Moon pull out a pile of moth-eaten rugs from under her bed in the spare room. And, what was worse, she had to smile while she was doing it because Mitza had to be a good houseguest, and more important, be above suspicion. Consequently she was not in a good mood. She didn’t like being late, she didn’t like sand, she didn’t like walking and she certainly didn’t like what she called “darned kids.” Still, it would all be worth it—she hoped.

Covered in sand after losing her footing down a dune, Mitza found her hiding place behind a small hillock of sand. It was, she hoped, near enough to hear what was being said and yet far enough away to make a quick exit without being seen. She settled down among the spiky dune grass and tried not to think about sand snakes.

Dan Moon, whip-thin, tall and dark, fiddled with the lapis lazuli stone that hung from a string around his neck. He had performed the MidSummer Circle more times than he liked to remember, but that night Dan was nervous—because for the first time his only child, Alice TodHunter Moon, twelve years old (and so now considered to have come of age) was old enough to hear it. Alice, who insisted on being known as Tod, was sitting at Dan’s feet, regarding him with an unflinching gaze. Her dark eyes were glowing with excitement as she twisted her long, thin plait—the traditional PathFinder elflock—that hung down from her mass of short dark hair. Just in time, she remembered not to chew the end of it.

Dan watched the last latecomer take his place. He did a head count and saw that all those from the village, aged twelve to fifteen, were indeed present. He checked his timepiece. It was important to Dan that he timed his talk to the very second. His father had never bothered, but Dan loved the sense of wonder that timing it just right always produced. It still gave even him goose bumps. He looked around the circle at the solemn audience, sitting cross-legged, muffled in their black cloaks. The younger ones had their hoods up against the chilly offshore breeze, but the older ones—too cool to cover—were toughing it out, and their faces and hair showed the typical PathFinder sheen that only became apparent in the dark.

Dan held his lantern high and saw the completed Circle of flickering points of flame. Silence had descended and with it an air of expectation. This was going to be a good night, Dan thought. The atmosphere was right. He was pleased for Tod’s sake—everyone remembered their first Circle. Dan glanced at his timepiece once more, took a deep breath and, speaking slowly but loudly enough for all to hear—including Mitza Draddenmora Draa—Dan Moon began.

“Good morning, PathFinders. Welcome to our new people.” Dan smiled down at Tod and two other twelve-year-olds, who were sitting in the space reserved for first-timers. Tod smiled shyly back. It was strange seeing her father in a new role—no longer a fisherman but someone who everyone was, literally, looking up to.

Dan continued. “Every year we meet in the early hours of MidSummer Morning to hear our history and to understand the secrets that made us PathFinders who we are, and why we are a little different from others. These secrets are kept among us, and when we leave the Circle we do not speak of them to anyone else. Does everyone here understand?” Dan did a 360-degree turn, looking at each person and getting a solemn “I understand” in return. Dan turned his gaze to the three sitting at his feet. “To begin, I will ask our first-timers to promise to keep our secrets from all who are not PathFinders, and more important, from all PathFinders who have yet to come of age and join our MidSummer Circle. You may have brothers and sisters or close friends who are only a little younger and you may feel there is no harm in telling them. But harm there is.”

Tod blushed. She knew Dan was thinking of her best friends, twins Oskar and Ferdie Sarn. But there was no way she was going to ever break the Circle promise.

One by one, Dan asked each first-timer to say the promise. Tod was last and felt very nervous by the time it was her turn. “Alice TodHunter Moon,” Dan said in a most un-Dad-like voice. “Do you promise to faithfully keep the secrets of our PathFinder Circle? For all time and in all ways?”

Tod spoke as loudly as she could manage. “I do promise to keep the secrets of the Circle.”

Dan smiled. “Well said all.” Then he addressed the rest in the Circle. “Let us welcome our new brother and sisters.”

“Welcome, brother and sisters, to the MidSummer Circle,” came the response.

Tod smiled. She belonged. It was a good feeling.

Dan relaxed. The serious part of the evening was done; now he could begin to do what he liked best—tell a story. He began to move around within the Circle, pacing slowly, speaking in his low, resonant voice while Tod listened, entranced.

“In the Days of Beyond, those distant days in the past, our ancestors went to the stars. Here on Earth they had great skills navigating what were called the Ancient Ways, and for this they were revered and called PathFinders. We no longer know what these Ancient Ways were, but we do know that because of their PathFinding skills, our forebears were chosen to leave this beautiful planet and find paths through the stars. They left willingly and went into a great closed metal container, a ship named PathFinder, which they knew they would never leave. An explosion sent the PathFinder up into the sky, away from our planet, past the moon, and set her on a path to the stars.”

Tod suppressed a gasp and exchanged glances of amazement with the other first-timers. She could hardly believe that Dan, such a great teller of stories, had managed to keep the most amazing story of all secret. She stared up at the dusting of stars above, trying to imagine what it would be like to walk into a huge metal tube, knowing that you would never see the sky or the sea again. Tod pushed her bare feet into the cold sand, as if to reassure herself that she was still on firmly on Earth, and listened to the comforting sound of her father’s voice continuing his story.

“These people were different from those they left behind. Because in order for the PathFinder ship to travel fast enough to reach the stars, at first the people had to live in fluid to protect them from the terrible forces of acceleration. This is where our beautiful sign language comes from, for it is not possible to speak in fluid. And neither is it possible to breathe. So in here . . .” Dan placed his fingers on either side of the bridge of his nose, “they had the things that fishes have. Gills. This was a deliberate change to the very essence of a human being, something that would be passed on to the next generation. This is why even now, many thousands of years away from our ancestors, some of us still have these gills.”

Tod stared up at her father in astonishment—so many secrets. She tried to imagine what it would be like to immerse herself in fluid, what the first gulp would feel like. Even if she had gills, would she choke? Would she feel as though she were drowning? Tod told herself she was never going to find out. Because her mother had not been not a PathFinder, she was very unlikely to have gills. But even so, Tod had to fight hard to suppress a shudder. Like many fishermen’s children, she had a horror of drowning.

Looking down directly at the first-timers, Dan said, “This is a dangerous secret that we keep from the younger ones for their own safety. As part of the Circle, you, too, will now keep the secret.”

Tod and her two companions nodded solemnly.

“I know,” Dan said, looking around the Circle, “that some of you will want to find out for yourselves whether you have these gills. And I know it is no good, my telling you not to do something, so I won’t. But I will tell you that the only way to find out if you possess gills is . . .” Dan paused not only for dramatic effect, but also to make sure they remembered. “. . . to be prepared to drown!”

A gratifying gasp came from the first-timers.

Well on form now, Dan continued. “And I will tell you why you must be prepared to drown. Because human gills do not activate until you breathe in a full, deep draft of water through your nose. If you do this and you are without gills, there is no way back. You will drown. And your chances of drowning are extremely high. We do not think that more than one in ten of us have gills now.”

Dan looked around the group. He smiled. As usual, the first-timers were surreptitiously sniffing, wondering if they could tell. “And before you ask, no, I do not know if I possess human gills or not. And I do not want to have to find out.”

Dan sneaked a quick look at his timepiece. He was going to have to speed up. “Our ancestors found the hidden Ways to the stars. For generations they traveled through distant galaxies, looking for worlds like ours. They danced with moons and flew with comets. They visited countless planets. On one they found an ancient civilization long dead; on another they found the stirrings of intelligent life but never, ever, did they find any creatures like us.

Dan surveyed his audience, gazing at him in rapt attention, the first-timers open-mouthed with amazement. “At last their expedition drew to a close and the PathFinder returned home. She landed on the very spot from which she had left, now marked by our PathFinder bell.”

Dan paused, and right on cue the sound of the bell drifted over the dunes. Tod felt a swathe of goose bumps run over her.

Dan waited until the last echoes of the bell had faded. “When the crew emerged, they found nothing but windswept dunes and a hostile crowd from the Trading Post who had seen a ball of fire drop from the sky and had come to investigate. Thousands of years on Earth had passed, compared with a few hundred on board the ship—the PathFinder and her crew had been forgotten. The Trading Post people thought they were strange alien creatures and imprisoned them in a fortress in the Far.” Dan waved his hand in the direction of the forest that bordered the village. “This is why we do not venture deep into the Far. It is not a good place for PathFinders.

“After many long years, the Trading Post jailers lost interest and they at last set our people free. The PathFinders returned here, built our village and lived peacefully. But the old mistrust between us remains to this day. They are a hostile people, quick to anger, and neither the Trading Post nor the OutPost is a safe place for a PathFinder to be.

“But enough of that!” Dan broke the sober atmosphere with a sudden smile. “Now, it is story time. The PathFinders brought back many tales of the unbelievable places they had seen. At each Circle I tell a different one using our own sign language, which they passed down to us, their children’s children. And tonight, Circle, I am going to tell you about the planet of the giant trees.”

Dan placed the tip of his left index finger on the tip of his left thumb to make an O: the PathFinder sign for okay when used as a question. In reply, all in the Circle made the same sign with their right hands: okay, used to show agreement or that all is well. And so Dan began.

Tod sat entranced as her father wove his story with fluid hand movements, dancing around the circle on his long legs, taking them with him to the stars. She wished it would go on forever, but when his hands began to slow and his elegant fingers fluttered less fast, Tod knew he was drawing to a close.

Now Dan began to speak as well as sign, slow and low. “And so, we PathFinders have traveled to the Great Beyond. We have seen many worlds, but we have seen none as beautiful as ours; we have seen many suns, but we have seen none as perfect as . . .” Dan turned around and pointed out to the sea. Exactly on schedule, a fingernail tip of orange broke the horizon, pushing its way up from the sea. “This! This is our sun. This our Earth. This is where we belong.”

A shiver of goose bumps ran around the MidSummer Circle. Dan Moon grinned. He had done it.

Enjoying their sense of being special, of belonging, the Circle watched in awe as the brilliant ball of light rose from the water; they saw the sky grow bright and the morning star fade away. It was, as Dan Moon had said, perfect.

Suddenly, Tod spotted a flash of gold in the sky. She looked up, shielding her eyes. There was another flash, green this time, and Tod’s heart jumped in recognition. This was something she had seen long ago. Something she had dreamed about for many years, and something that no one, not even her father, believed she had seen.

“It’s the Dragon Boat!” Tod shouted, leaping to her feet. “The Dragon Boat!” Everyone looked at her disapprovingly, particularly Dan. This was not how you behaved in the Circle. But now everyone was looking at the sky, and some were standing up to get a better view. The MidSummer Circle was broken.

The flash of gold and green moved ever nearer, and now they began to see what Tod already knew it to be—a beautiful green dragon that was also a golden boat. Or was it a beautiful golden boat that was also a green dragon?

The Dragon Boat approached steadily, her huge wings beating up-and-down, up-and-down, and soon she was near enough for everyone to see the dragon’s neck stretched forward, her iridescent scales shining in the sunlight. They saw her tail arched high, the golden barb on the end glinting. And then her sleek golden hull was overhead; everyone was waving madly—and two figures at the helm, one in purple, one in red, returning their waves.

Dan Moon knew he had been upstaged, but he didn’t mind. He was excited as anyone to have seen such an amazing sight. He swept his daughter up into a hug and said, “So, Alice TodHunter Moon, you really did see that Dragon Boat.”

“Put me down, Dad,” Tod muttered. “Everyone’s looking.”

 

The Dragon Boat

The pilot of the Dragon Boat—a young man with curly straw-colored hair and green eyes so bright that you might expect them to shine in the dark—looked down at the first landfall since they had left their island.

“Hey, Jen,” he said, pointing down to the beach. “There’s that circle of lights again. That’s another MidSummer tradition going on down there, I guess.”

Jenna Heap, a young woman wearing a fine cloak of red silk lined with white fur, her long dark hair kept in place by a circlet of gold, peered over the side of the Dragon Boat. “They’ve seen us,” she said, returning the waves of the excited onlookers below. “It’s already light. We must be later than usual.”

The young man, Septimus Heap—Jenna Heap’s adoptive brother—smiled. “I seem to remember someone was fussing about whether we had enough food.” He pointed at two large picnic baskets strapped to the deck. “Even though we have enough to feed the entire House of Foryx.”

Jenna resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at Septimus. She was twenty-one now, she told herself sternly, she was the Castle Queen and it would not do. Particularly now, she thought, as she looked at Septimus’s purple wool cloak lined with indigo fur and the thick gold and platinum belt he wore around his purple tunic, that he was the Castle’s ExtraOrdinary Wizard. Which Jenna—and even Septimus himself—still found hard to believe.

Like those in the Circle on the beach below, Jenna was performing a MidSummer tradition. Every MidSummer Day for many thousands of years, Castle Queens had visited the Dragon Boat where she had lain in an ancient temple beneath the ground, hidden there by the Castle’s first ever ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Hotep-Ra. But times changed and when Jenna was eleven years old, she and Septimus had flown the Dragon Boat back to the Castle. And now that Jenna was herself Queen and Septimus was able to freely visit Hotep-Ra, every MidSummer Day they took the Dragon Boat to see her old master, Hotep-Ra. It was a time both Jenna and Septimus looked forward to, a precious space where they could be themselves once more—just brother and sister, plain Jenna and Septimus Heap.

This year was even more precious. Because Septimus was now ExtraOrdinary Wizard, he had been reluctant to go. However, the Castle Queen had insisted on it. Septimus still wore the gold and emerald Dragon Ring that made him master of the Dragon Boat, and therefore it was his duty, Jenna had told him sternly. And so Septimus had left behind an assortment of deputies in the Castle’s Wizard Tower—both ghostly and human—and hoped that everything would be all right.

And now, as the orange ball of the sun turned the sky a luminous pink and a flight of ducks flew quacking across their path, Septimus laughed out loud. He wasso pleased that Jenna had insisted.

 

Discovered

Later, as Tod and Dan were wandering home along the beach, watching the early-morning sparkle of sunlight glancing off the MidSummer waves, Tod said, “Dad, why do you suppose Aunt Mitza was hiding in the dunes while we had our Circle?”

“Was she?” Dan Moon looked at Tod uneasily.

Tod nodded. “Yes. When everyone was waving at the Dragon Boat, I saw her get up and scurry away. And I know it was her, because she waddles like a duck. Like this.” Tod did an accurate impression of Aunt Mitza’s flat-footed walk, but Dan Moon was not amused.

“You must respect your elders, Tod.”

“But I don’t like her, Dad. And neither do you.”

Dan Moon did not deny it. “Even so, Tod, you must give your mother’s stepsister respect. We must both show her hospitality.”

Tod fell quiet. Her mother had died when she was only seven and Tod knew that anything relating to her mother was precious to Dan—as it was to her, too. She knew that was the only reason that Dan had made Aunt Mitza welcome when she had turned up on the doorstep the previous week, expressing a wish to meet “her darling little step-niece” after all these years. But Aunt Mitza’s sharp-eyed looks when Dan was not around had not endeared her to Tod. Unlike Dan, she drew the line at Aunt Mitza. Tod could not believe her mother had ever liked her stepsister, and she was sure that her mother would not have tolerated Aunt Mitza eavesdropping on their secrets.

“But Aunt Mitza was listening in on our Circle, Dad,” said Tod. “She heard our secret—the one we all promised never to tell. That’s not respecting us, is it? Or our hospitality. Or Mum.”

Dan Moon frowned. “What’s heard is heard. It can’t be undone. But you are right, Tod. She has not respected your mother. Tomorrow I will ask her to leave.”

But it wasn’t Mitza who left the next day. It was Dan.

 

 

Part II

The House of Foryx

The Dragon Boat flew steadily eastward. She knew the way perfectly, and all Jenna and Septimus needed to do was to watch the world going by and eat their way through the first picnic basket. It was late morning when they saw the grim fortress where Hotep-Ra lived. The octagonal granite towers of the House of Foryx, dark against the perpetual snow that surrounded them, reared up from a pillar of rock surrounded by an abyss. Both Jenna and Septimus shivered—the House of Foryx was an eerie place.

The Dragon Boat flew lower. She circled the House of Foryx once, then her long neck dipped down and she went in to land. Jenna shut her eyes—this part always scared her. The Dragon Boat was heading for a wide, white terrace of marble, and even now, when Jenna knew it would be all right, it felt as though they were about to crash into solid stone. But as the Dragon Boat’s keel touched down, the marble changed into a milky liquid and they landed softly with a long, lowshishhhh.

Septimus brushed down his purple robes and tightened his gold and platinum ExtraOrdinary Wizard belt. This was the first time he had met Hotep-Ra in his role as ExtraOrdinary Wizard, and he wanted to look his best.

Jenna put the landing ladder over the side and gave Septimus a hug. “You’ve got the Questing Stone?” she asked—as she always did.

“Jen, don’t be a pest. Of course I do.”

“Show me,” Jenna insisted, remembering the one terrifying day that Septimus had left the Questing Stone in the boat. She had gone racing after him with it and had only just reached him in time.

Septimus put his hand in his pocket and held out an iridescent black stone, round and smooth, with a gold “Q” set into it. He flipped it over and showed her Hotep-Ra’s own symbol Magykally incised into the back. This was Septimus’s key to freedom; it allowed him to come out of the House of Foryx safely back into his own Time.

“Good,” said Jenna. “Nervous?”

Septimus gave Jenna a strained smile. “A bit,” he admitted. “I’m wondering if I might see him—I mean, me—this time.”

“Do you think you might?”

“Yeah, I do. When I did see me—I mean, him—my robes looked really new.”

“It will be fine,” Jenna said reassuringly. “Just don’t touch him—I mean, you. That’s the important thing, isn’t it?”

“Yes. And I didn’t touch him or me then, so I know it’s okay. Well, it was then. But who knows, maybe it will be different this time. Right, here goes. I’ll see you in a sec.” With that, Septimus swung himself onto the ladder and a few moments later was hurrying off across the marble terrace toward the forbidding gray fortress.

Jenna watched him stride up to a towering door made from great planks of ebony held together with iron bars and rivets. It looked, she thought, like the door to a prison—and it was, in a way. The House of Foryx, built by Hotep-Ra, was the place where All Times Do Meet. Here in the house, Time stood still, like a hub at the center of a spinning wheel. And although those in the House of Foryx were free to leave whenever they chose, they could not choose the Time in which they would appear. Only a person in possession of a completed Questing Stone could do this—and Septimus had the only one.

A flurry of snow swept across the terrace, and through it Jenna saw Septimus reach up and tug the bellpull. She saw the door open and the little batlike doorman step aside to let him pass. Then the door closed and Septimus was gone.

Jenna hated this part of their visit; she was always afraid she would never see Septimus again. To take her mind off things, she set about rigging up a red and gold awning over the Dragon Boat. Then when Septimus came out, however hard the snow might fall, however chill the wind might blow, they would sit with Hotep-Ra under the awning and have the lunch that she had brought. This was how it always went, and this, she told herself sternly, was how it would be today.

 

Doppelgänger

Inside the House of Foryx, Septimus found himself in a small lobby with a black-and-white checkerboard floor and a striking chair carved in the shape of a dragon. He pushed opened the lobby door—which always opened more easily than he expected it too—and hurtled into the vast candlelit entrance hall. He stood for a moment to collect his thoughts and breathed in the strange, stagnant air of a place where All Times Do Meet. The entrance hall was wreathed in candle smoke and crowded with people milling around, some plucking up the courage to go out, some disoriented by having just—or so it felt to them—come in, but most of them in a Timeless daze, hardly knowing who or where they were anymore.

Septimus could see little through the smoky haze that always hung around this place, but as he pushed his way through the crowd he could not help but glance anxiously up to the balustraded landing above. His heart missed a beat—he was there. His younger, fourteen-year-old self was up on the landing, staring down at him in dismay. Septimus gulped. Soon he would meet himself, just as he had done seven years previously. Since that meeting he had learned many things about meeting oneself in an earlier time—that one must not touch the other; that one may speak but not the other; that, above all, he must not change anything whatsoever about the meeting that had, for him, already happened and had made him who he was right then. As Septimus began to climb the stairs toward his past, there was so much he wanted to say to the fourteen-year-old Septimus. He wished he’d said more, but at least, he thought, he had managed to blurt out the most important thing of all.

The wide, sweeping staircase swept elegantly upward. As he climbed higher the candle smoke cleared and Septimus looked up, straight into the eyes of . . . himself. Septimus saw that his younger self was now shaking hands with Hotep-Ra, now he was turning to go and looking just as spooked as his present self felt.

Two steps below Hotep-Ra, both the Septimuses stopped.

They must not touch. The older Septimus held up his hands to stop the younger from coming closer. He tried to appear cool and in control but he came across, he thought, like a prized dillop. He had thought that then and he thought it now.

One may speak but not the other. “Whoa,” he said. “Don’t speak. Bit dangerous, Timewise, apparently. I wondered when we’d meet—if it might be this Time.” He was pleased that everything seemed to be going just as he remembered it had seven years back. “Marcia’s fine,” he said. “And that is all you want to know right now.”

The young Septimus gave him a relieved half smile, hesitated, then ran off down the stairs. Septimus watched himself in his scruffy green Apprentice robes thread his way through the crowded hall below.

He must not change anything whatsoever. He waited for himself to glance back up and then he waved. The young Septimus returned his wave and was gone. Out to another Time, out to a different world.

 

Going Out

There are many things that a brand-new ExtraOrdinary Wizard will want to ask the very first ExtraOrdinary Wizard, and Septimus was no exception. He spent what felt to him like many hours of House of Foryx Time with Hotep-Ra up in the old Wizard’s rooms. When at last Septimus had asked all his questions, Hotep-Ra said eagerly, “I think it is time for lunch, do you not, Septimus?” Hotep-Ra had become rather fond of the picnics that Jenna made.

The two ExtraOrdinary Wizards threaded their way through the crowds of the hazy entrance hall and went into the lobby. The dragon chair was now occupied by a striking girl dressed in white furs. Septimus noticed she had brilliant blue fingernails and her white-blond hair was dressed in tiny braids gathered into a thick ponytail. The girl sprang to her feet and grabbed hold of Septimus’s arm. “Tell me, please,” she said in a heavily accented voice. “You are the man with the Magyk stone, aren’t you? You always go out into the Time you came in?”

Septimus clutched the Questing Stone tightly in his hand, afraid that the girl might try to grab it. “Yes, I am. And I do.”

The girl looked deep into Septimus’s eyes. He was mesmerized. “Please, oh please, I beg of you,” she said. “Take me Out.”

Hotep-Ra did not like the prospect of his precious lunch with his Dragon Boat and his favorite Queen being disrupted. “Madam, you are in no need of being ‘Taken Out,’ as you put it. You are free to leave at any time.”

The girl glared at the old man. “I don’t want any Time. I want his Time.”

Septimus knew how the girl felt. He, too, had once been terrified of which Time he would step out into, but it was a terror that Hotep-Ra would never understand. “Of course you may Come Out with me,” he said. “It would be a pleasure.” He would have offered her his arm, but she already had it.

 

Taxi

Jenna was still trying to put up the awning when she saw Septimus emerge from the House of Foryx with—who was that? Jenna frowned. What was Septimus thinking, bringing someone—some new girlfriend, no doubt—to intrude on their precious time together? From the expression on Hotep-Ra’s face she could see that the ancient Wizard was no happier about it than she was.

Their guest introduced herself as the Snow Princess Driffa, the Most High and Bountiful. “But I am known to my friends,” she said, settling down in the Dragon Boat and kicking off her fur boots to reveal long white feet with bright blue toenails, “as Driffa.” She bestowed a glittering smile on her three companions. “And I hope that you will consider yourselves as my friends.”

“Of course we will,” said Septimus. Jenna and Hotep-Ra smiled icily.

Hotep-Ra thawed a little at the sight of the salmon mousse and elderflower champagne, but he said little—the Snow Princess spoke enough words for them all. She told them how she had gone to the House of Foryx to find an ancestor who had asked her to meet her there. After giving her a frightening message, her great-great (and then some) grandmother had told Driffa to wait for “a beautiful blond young man in purple who had a Magyk stone.” Driffa had waited for what felt like centuries until Septimus had at last appeared.

The Snow Princess put her thin white hand on Septimus’s and said, “I can never thank you enough for Going Out with me. Never.” Driffa reclined languidly, so that snowflakes fell onto her upturned face. She breathed in deeply. “Ah,” she murmured. “I had forgotten the smell of snow.”

Septimus gazed at Driffa, entranced. Hotep-Ra and Jenna exchanged exasperated glances.

Hotep-Ra did not linger. Jenna was waving him good-bye, watching the dark door of the House of Foryx close upon the old Wizard once more, when she heard Septimus saying, “It would be our pleasure to take you home, Driffa. I have always wanted to see the Eastern SnowPlains.”

Jenna bit back a retort of Since when? and gave Septimus one of her Queenly disapproving stares. It had no effect.

The Snow Princess Driffa, the Most High and Bountiful, was not a good passenger. She spent most of the journey lying prone on the deck of the Dragon Boat, groaning loudly. She protested whenever Jenna roused her to ask for directions, and when she looked out to see where they were, she was promptly sick over the side. “All down the lovely gold leaf,” Jenna complained to Septimus. It took two swelteringly hot days and two bitterly cold nights to reach the Eastern SnowPlains. Night was falling when they at last reached the place that the Snow Princess recognized as home—a high snow-covered plain surrounded by mountains, where the air was thin and the wind blew with a low-pitched moan.

“There! I see it. Our Blue Pinnacle!” Driffa called out.

Septimus and Jenna peered out through the snow clouds and glimpsed what looked like a spire of pure lapis lazuli shooting up from the snow. Then the snow closed in and everything became a dull white once more.

Driffa turned to Septimus, her dark blue eyes shining with excitement. “Can you not feel its wonderful Enchantment?”

Septimus could feel an Enchantment, but he would not have called it wonderful. It felt Darke to him. Unwilling to upset the Snow Princess, he used the opaque Wizard-talk that he had recently acquired to get him out of situations he did not entirely understand. “I am sure there is many a wonderful Enchantment in this enchanting place.”

“Oh,” said Driffa, and she blushed.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Jenna muttered under her breath. Ever since Septimus’s longtime girlfriend Rose had dumped him for a certain scribe named Foxy, Septimus had turned into what Jenna considered to be an outrageous flirt.

The glimpse of the Blue Pinnacle—Enchanted or otherwise—was enough to guide the Snow Princess home. As the Dragon Boat dropped down through the clouds they caught a brief glimpse of beautiful snow-covered towers soaring up from the foothills and the welcoming glow of lanterns strung out along delicate walkways, but then a blizzard came howling in and they were lost from view.

There was nowhere for the Dragon Boat to land, but Septimus took her down until she was hovering a few feet above the snow. Jenna threw out the landing ladder and slipped into graceful-Queen mode, something she was extremely good at after seven years’ practice. “Snow Princess Driffa, the Most High and Bountiful,” she said. “It was our pleasure and privilege to return you to your beautiful country. We wish you much happiness among your kin. Farewell.”

Determined to outdo Jenna’s speech, the Snow Princess replied, “Oh, Castle Queen and ExtraOrdinary Wizard, you are truly the most generous of beings and I thank you from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. May your snowfall be soft and your skies be blue. May the Grula-Grula guide you true.”

Septimus was puzzled at the mention of “Grula-Grula.” He wanted to ask the Snow Princess what she meant, but one look at Jenna’s expression told him that his Castle Queen wanted their passenger gone. Obediently, Septimus helped the Snow Princess onto the ladder. She held his hand for as long as possible and then she dropped down into the soft snow below and was gone, her white furs blending into the blizzard.

“I hope she will be all right,” Septimus said.

“People like that usually are,” Jenna observed.

Septimus took the Dragon Boat low across the center of the SnowPlain to take another look at the intriguing Blue Pinnacle. As they drew near, the clouds briefly parted.

“Crumbs,” said Jenna. “What’s that?”

Beside the Blue Pinnacle was what looked like an ant nest. A huge mound of black spoil lay upon on the snow, and lines of figures were emerging from a great gash in the ground, slowly pushing barrows of dirt and rock.

Septimus frowned. “There is a Darke Magyk down there for sure,” he said.

Suddenly a ball of flame shot into the air and headed straight for them. Septimus pushed the tiller across to take evasive action, but there was no need. The Dragon Boat had seen a ThunderFlash before and she knew what was coming. She heeled over in a rapid turn and the ball of fire shot past, spinning as it went, the heat melting the ice on the deck.

Two more missiles came after them, but the Dragon Boat was out of reach. The snowstorm closed around them once more and Jenna made her way forward to the prow. She put her arms around the dragon’s ice-cold neck and whispered, “Take us home.”

 

Waiting

Two nights later the Dragon Boat flew over the PathFinders’ sandspit once again. This time there was no circle of lights. But down below on the beach in the darkness, someone was there,.

It was Tod. She was sitting beside her father’s empty boat, waiting.

At dawn the previous morning, Dan Moon had gone fishing. It had been a fine day and Tod had helped him stow the nets and push his boat, Vega, down the beach. She had watched him sail slowly out, and when his red sail disappeared around the headland Tod had wandered off to have breakfast with her friends, the Sarn family. Even though Aunt Mitza had gone out that morning, Tod had no wish to go home, in case she came back unexpectedly.

Many PathFinders had gone fishing that day. Tod returned to the beach in the evening with other villagers, watching the boats come in until the only one not come home was her father’s. Darkness began to fall and the evening breeze blew in, but still there was no sign of Dan. Oskar and Ferdie Sarn joined her, bringing blankets and hot drinks. The long night passed slowly with nothing but an empty sea before them.

In the gray light of early dawn, Tod saw the unmistakable shape of Dan’s boat drifting toward the shore. But one look told her that there was no one on board. Vega’s sail hung loose and she meandered along with the waves, rocking back and forth.

Jerra Sarn—Oskar and Ferdie’s elder brother—took Tod out to fetch Vega and together, they pulled her up onto the sand. All that remained of Dan was his sodden fishing vest lying in a pool of water at the bottom of his boat. There were no nets, no fish and absolutely no sign of Dan.

Tod put on Dan’s fishing vest and refused to leave the beach. The Sarns took turns keeping her company but Tod did not care who was with her—the only person she wanted to see was her father. She sat steadfastly staring at the sea, watching for Dan. Ferdie and Oskar did not understand why, and Tod kept the Circle promise and did not tell them. But Jerra Sarn, who had been at the MidSummer Circle for the last time three days earlier, understood what Tod was hoping for.

And so, as the Dragon Boat flew overhead, Tod sat dreaming that any moment Dan Moon would break the surface of the water and come wading out to her to tell her that yes, he had PathFinder gills. Time and again Tod imagined how he would look—draped with seaweed, shivering, but alive. She dreamed of how they would help him up the beach and take him home, and how Dan would tell them stories of his strange walk home along the seabed, home to his little Alice, and that everything was all right now.

But when the sun rose over the sea for the second day, Dan had not come home and Tod was still waiting.

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