It is going too fast, he thought. It is going too fast.

Suddenly the descent stopped with a bone-jarring thud that set their teeth rattling in their skulls. Marcellus staggered back and grabbed hold of Septimus. This brought them both slithering to the floor, which—being shiny and slightly tilted—sent them cannoning across the chamber, where they fetched up in a pile against the wall.

“Aaaaah,” Marcellus groaned.

Septimus extricated himself from Marcellus’s shoes. He stood up shakily and shook his head, trying to clear the buzzing inside.

“Do you think it’s landed all right?” Marcellus whispered from the floor.

Septimus didn’t think it had, but there was only one way to find out—open the door. He saw a telltale worn patch on the opposite side of the chamber from where they had come in; he walked gingerly across the sloping floor and placed his hand on the wall. Septimus waited for the green light to appear that would signal the opening of the door. A glimmer of green rose briefly beneath his hand, then faded away. Septimus rubbed his hand on his tunic to remove any dust and pushed it back on the patch, leaning all his weight on it.

Nothing happened. No green light. No opening door. Nothing.

A sharp intake of breath came from Marcellus. “Try again, Apprentice,” he urged.

Septimus tried again. Nothing happened.

“Maybe there?” said Marcellus, pointing to another spot.

Septimus tried there. Nothing. He told himself to keep calm.

“Perhaps that might be the place,” said Marcellus, indicating a slightly less shiny spot that was not, Septimus thought, anywhere near where the door should be.

Nothing.

“Apprentice,” said Marcellus, “we should ascend.”

Septimus thought they should too. He put his hand on the orange arrow, which was still pointing downward, and moved his hand in an upward direction, which should have flipped the arrow around to point up. The arrow stayed just as it was. Septimus tried again but still the arrow did not move. And neither did the chamber.

“You’re not doing it right,” Marcellus said.

“You do it, then,” Septimus replied, irritated.

Marcellus—whose hand, Septimus noticed, was trembling—had no luck with the arrow either. It stayed where it was, pointing resolutely to the floor.

“Sheesh,” muttered Marcellus.

“Perhaps it needs to go down a bit more first,” Septimus suggested, running his hand down from the orange arrow. But whether the chamber needed to or not, it would not budge.

It was then that the blue light illuminating the inside of the chamber began to fade. The last glimpse it showed Septimus was the flash of panic that shot across Marcellus’s face. And then it was dark—no orange arrow, no green light, nothing but a total blackness.

Septimus waited for the glow from his Dragon Ring to kick in. It was strange, he thought, because he didn’t usually have to wait at all. His left hand found his right index finger and he checked that the ring was still there. It was. So why wasn’t it glowing like it always did? Why? Septimus felt a flicker of panic in his stomach and fought it down. The total darkness took him straight back to a terrifying night that he had spent, age seven, in a Young Army wolverine pit.

“My ring,” he said into the darkness. “My Dragon Ring. It’s not doing anything.”

“No,” came Marcellus’s voice, dismal in the dark.

Septimus felt as though he could not bear being trapped inside the blackness a moment longer. He had to do something.

“I’m going to do a Transport.”

He heard the Alchemist sigh and mistook the reason.

“Marcellus, I’ll come back; you know I will. But I have to get some help. Marcia will know what to do.”

Another sigh.

“Marcia will have to know now, Marcellus. We’ve got no choice. I’ll Transport right back here. I won’t leave you, I promise.”

There was silence.

“You do believe me, don’t you?”

At last Marcellus spoke. “Yes, I do believe you, Apprentice. I believe you because I trust you absolutely. But even if I didn’t trust you I would still believe you—because unfortunately I know you won’t leave me. Not with a Transport.”

“What do you mean?” Something about the way Marcellus had spoken made Septimus feel very scared.

There was a long silence and then Marcellus spoke. “Apprentice, Magyk will not work in this chamber.”

“No. That’s not true!”

“So . . . does your Dragon Ring shine?”