“Oof! Hello, Mum. Good timing,” said Nicko with a big smile.
“She’s back,” said Sarah. “What a relief.”
“Who’s back?”
“Jenna!”
“Oh, that’s brilliant. Sam’s got plenty of fish.”
“Fish?” Sarah was flummoxed.
“It’s a surprise, Mum. We’re having a Forest supper. For you.”
“Forest supper?”
“Down on the riverbank. See?” Nicko pointed to the lights outside.
“Oh.” Sarah gazed out at the lights. Now that she looked closely she could see the burly figures of her four Forest sons tending a fire and yes, standing beside the river, holding lanterns, were Simon and Septimus talking to Silas, Edmund and Ernold.
“Mum, are you all right?” asked Nicko.
Sarah shook off her disappointment. She knew that only a few months ago if someone had told her that she would have all her boys with her, safe and happy, she would have been ecstatic. Count your blessings, Sarah Heap, she told herself sternly. And smile.
“I’m fine, Nicko love. Thank you. Now, where’s this wonderful supper?”
While the Forest Heaps cooked fish for Sarah and Silas, down on Snake Slipway another supper was in progress. Marcellus, Simon and Lucy were sitting in the long, narrow dining room that ran from the front to the back of the house, at an equally long, narrow table lit with so many candles that Lucy found it hard to see anything in the glare.
“I have some bad news,” Marcellus announced.
Simon looked at Lucy anxiously. He still expected things to go wrong, and he braced himself, thinking that Marcellus was going to say that he no longer wanted him to be his Apprentice.
“The Alchemie Chimney has fallen down,” said Marcellus.
“It’s the frost,” Lucy said. “The mortar won’t set.”
“So they say,” said Marcellus gloomily.
“You need to put heaters inside the scaffolding tarpaulin,” said Lucy.
Marcellus looked suddenly attentive—why hadn’t the builder thought of that? “And you should make them build it like CattRokk lighthouse,” Lucy added.
“Oh?”
“Yes. CattRokk has huge granite blocks as foundations, then bricks. They get smaller as they go up. You need the lower part of the chimney to be a good wide base for the upper part.”
Marcellus was impressed. So much so that by the end of the evening, Lucy was in charge of building the Alchemie Chimney. Later, as they walked across the road back to their little house, Simon said proudly, “There’s no way the new chimney will fall down, Lu. Not with you in charge. It wouldn’t dare.”
While Sarah fretted about her Forest sons leaving, the one group of Heaps who Sarah would have been very happy to wave good-bye to showed no signs of wanting to go. In fact, to Sarah’s dismay Ernold and Edmund Heap showed every sign of wanting to stay—permanently. They found themselves a suite of rooms at the far end of the Palace and set up camp, as Sarah put it. “The trouble is, Silas,” Sarah said one afternoon, “we can’t say we don’t have the room, can we?”
“We won’t when we move back home,” said Silas. “They’ll have to go then.”
The morning after the supper by the river, Silas was due at the Wizard Tower on Seal Watch. Sarah begged him to take Ernold and Edmund with him. “They are driving me nuts, Silas—they follow me everywhere and they don’t stop talking. All I want is a quiet morning in the herb garden without having to listen to a comedy double act.” Silas dutifully took his brothers along to the Wizard Tower. He signed them in as visiting Wizards—which they both claimed to be—and left them to explore the open areas of the Tower. Half an hour later, when he had finished his Watch, Silas found himself in trouble.
Head fuzzy from staring at Magyk, Silas emerged to find an angry Marcia Overstrand waiting for him with Edmund and Ernold standing sheepishly at her side.
“Are these yours?” Marcia demanded, as though Silas had left a pair of smelly socks on the floor.
“Er, yes. I signed them in,” Silas had to admit.
“As visiting Wizards?” Marcia sounded incredulous.
“As indeed we are, Madam,” Edmund piped up.
“Totally, utterly and entirely at your service, ExtraOrdinary Madam,” Ernold supplied.
“I am not an ExtraOrdinary Madam,” said Marcia severely. “I am an ExtraOrdinary Wizard. Silas, before signing people in as visiting Wizards I would expect you to at least check that they are bona fide Wizards. As these two persons”—with some effort, Marcia fought off the urge to refer to the visitors as idiots—“clearly are not.”