Jenna was not pleased. “It won’t go through the Way, Sep.”

“I know.” Septimus sighed. “I’ll have to take it back to the Port on a sled and then get the Port barge.”

Jenna was aghast. “No, Sep! We have to get to Marcellus today. It’s a matter of life and death.”

“But Jen, like I said, Marcellus hasn’t got the Fyre going yet. He can’t do it until then.”

“Sep, we have to ask—we have to!”

Wolf Boy stepped in. “Septimus,” he said, feeling strange using his friend’s real name for the first time, “have you looked outside?”

Septimus glanced across at the window. Snow was falling fast. He went over to the front door and pulled it open. All he could see was a grayish-white blanket of snow falling so thick that the air looked almost solid. “Bother,” he said.

“It’s a real marsh blizzard,” said Wolf Boy, joining him. “You’d be crazy to go out in that. In ten minutes you and that flask would be just a weird-shaped pile of snow.”

“How long will it last?” asked Septimus.

Wolf Boy shrugged. “Who knows? But I’d guess all day. We’ve had a few of these recently and once they start, the snow keeps falling until the cold night air comes in.”

Septimus would have happily waited the blizzard out in the comfort of Aunt Zelda’s cottage. He would have loved to spend a day by the fire talking to Wolf Boy, catching up with his life and finding out what he was doing. But one look at Jenna told him that that was not an option. “I’ll have to come back for it,” he said. “Tomorrow, when the blizzard’s blown out.”

Jenna pushed Septimus into the little cupboard under the stairs, closed the door and lit a small lamp. The light flared up in the dark and Septimus saw the familiar shelves with their orderly bottles of Unstable Potions, and below them he saw in the dark wood a line of drawers, in which he had always supposed the Partikular Poisons were kept. He watched as with a practiced air, Jenna reached down to the bottom drawer and opened it. He sensed something move within the drawer and heard a soft click behind them as the cupboard door locked itself and they were plunged into darkness.

The next thing Septimus knew was Jenna pushing the door open again. He guessed she had forgotten something. She stepped out and he waited for her to go and get whatever it was.

Jenna looked back into the cupboard. “Are you coming, Sep?”

“Huh?”

“We’re here.”

“Where?”

“Back at the Castle. In the Palace.”

“Already?”

Jenna grinned. “Yep. Good, isn’t it?”

Septimus followed Jenna out of the cupboard and stepped into a small, cozy room. It possessed a little fireplace with a fire burning in the grate, and a comfortable, somewhat worn-looking chair placed beside it. What he did not see was the occupant of the chair: the ghost of a Queen—a young woman, wearing a red silk tunic, with a gold cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Around her long dark hair was a gold circlet—the one that Jenna now wore.

At the opening of the cupboard door, the ghost jumped up. She had been waiting for this moment. Her daughter had rushed past her so fast on her way into the cupboard that she had not had time to react. Now she was ready. The ghost of the Queen got to her feet and stepped in front of Jenna.

Jenna stopped dead—something was in the way.

Septimus was just behind Jenna. “What is it?” he whispered.

Jenna remembered something the ghost of Queen Etheldredda had once said to her. “I think that maybe my mother is here,” she whispered. Tentatively she put her hand out in front of her.

The ghost of Queen Cerys stepped back to avoid being Passed Through. “Yes, yes, I am here!” she said—but no sound emerged. What the ghost did not realize was that it takes some practice to speak without Appearing. And Cerys knew that the Time was not yet Right for her to Appear to her daughter.

Jenna turned to Septimus. “Do you feel it?” she whispered.

Septimus nodded. The little room felt strangely full of movement, as though currents of air were swirling around.

Jenna took a deep breath and said out loud, “Is anyone there?”

“I am here,” said the ghost of the Queen, silently and somewhat irritably. “Daughter, our mothers tell me the Dragon Boat is dying. You must save her!”

Beside the ghost of Queen Cerys stood the ghost of her own mother, Jenna’s grandmother, the redoubtable Queen Matthilda. The rotund ghost, gray hair awry, crown slightly askew as it always had been in Life, was agitated. “For goodness’ sake, Cerys, say something,” the ghost told her daughter.