“Because, Marcellus, you have written on it. There!”
Very slowly—playing for time, Marcia suspected—Marcellus fished out his little round spectacles and put them on, carefully fitting the curled earpieces behind his ears. Marcia tapped her foot impatiently.
Marcellus peered at the note. “Julius FYI—Vent Cooling System. M,” he muttered. “FYI . . . strange name.” Beetle began to correct Marcellus, but Marcia held her hand up to stop him. Marcellus looked up at Marcia. “And no doubt you think that the ‘M’ is for Marcellus?”
“Yes,” said Marcia. A waver of uncertainty wandered into her voice.
Marcellus scented victory. He smiled and put the paper back down on the desk. “Well, I do hope you don’t call me out to inspect every little note in the Castle signed with the letter ‘M.’ I shall be spending all my time going up and down Wizard Way. There must be so many notes out there from . . . let me see now . . . Milo, Morwenna, Marissa, Maureen, Marcus—”
Marcia blanched at the mention of Marcus. Marcus Overland, ex-Ordinary Wizard, had once been given Marcia’s ExtraOrdinary Wizard robes by the Wizard Tower laundry in error. He had paraded around the Castle in them, acting very badly indeed. There were still people who were convinced that Marcia had once run screaming down Wizard Way, waving a large pair of bloomers above her head. “That’s enough of that, Marcellus,” Marcia told him. “There is no need to be sarcastic.”
“I was merely pointing out the infinite possibilities of the letter ‘M,’” said Marcellus.
Beetle watched with a mixture of admiration for Marcellus’s cool head and annoyance at how Marcellus was putting Marcia off. It was time for some straight talking. From his folder he took a translucent piece of paper on which he had marked the position of all the puddles, and placed it on top of the Vent diagram.
“We had hoped you might be able to help us, Marcellus,” he said smoothly. “For the last few weeks I have been monitoring a very strange occurrence. Puddles have appeared throughout the Castle.”
Marcellus looked genuinely surprised, and then—Beetle was sure—a brief flash of panic crossed his face. Feeling more confident, Beetle continued, “At the beginning of the Big Freeze we had nine. My scribes have been checking on them daily and despite temperatures well below freezing, they report that no puddle has frozen over. And then two days ago four more were reported. Two appeared in scribes’ back gardens, and two in iced-up alleyways. It is odd, don’t you think?”
“I suppose it is,” said Marcellus. “But I don’t know why you are telling me.”
Beetle pointed to the papers lying in front of them. “You will see that on this top tracing paper I have a map of the Castle. On it I have placed a red dot where each puddle is.” Beetle looked up at Marcellus. “There are thirteen in all.”
There would be, thought Marcellus grimly. “Indeed?” he said coolly. “Is thirteen significant?”
“You tell me,” said Beetle.
Marcellus said nothing.
Beetle continued. “Now, if we place the tracing over the Vent diagram, like so . . . we can see that each red dot is on top of the end of a line on the diagram.”
“So it is,” murmured Marcellus. “How very interesting.”
“And I presume each line ending is a Vent.”
Marcellus shrugged. “Whatever a Vent is.”
Beetle knew he had to keep cool, but it was not easy. Fighting to keep any vestige of irritation out of his voice, he continued, “I—we—believe that the note is indeed from you and we believe that you wrote it to Julius Pike. FYI is, as I am sure you do actually remember, archaic shorthand for ‘For Your Information.’ Marcia and I are convinced that there is a connection between these puddles and the Fyre in the Great Chamber of Alchemie. We would like an explanation as to why the puddles occurred before the Fyre has even been lit. Before, in fact, the Chamber was opened.”
For a few seconds, Beetle thought he had done it.
Marcellus sighed and said, “Indeed, there is a connection. Perhaps I may demonstrate?”
Beetle nodded.
Marcellus took a pen and proceeded to add a series of thick black crosses to the red dots on Beetle’s Castle plan. He then joined them up so that they formed a wavy line that meandered from the South Gate by the river to the Wizard Tower.
“You will find that all these places will have melting snow,” he said, looking at Beetle over the top of his spectacles. “You will also see that by no means all these spots have a—what do you call it—a Vent beneath them as shown on the diagram. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the ones you have found just happen to be above one of these Vent things. Whatever they may be.” He shrugged. “Coincidences happen.”
“Coincidences?”
Marcellus took off his spectacles and looked up. “Dragon blood.”
“What?”
“Dragon blood. After his fight with the Darke dragon, Spit Fyre left a trail of blood from the South Gate to the Wizard Tower. Each red dot, and now each cross, marks a spot of blood. You will find the snow has also melted at every cross I have drawn. I agree there is a link between the opening of the Chamber and the melting snow, but only insofar as that the flight made by Spit Fyre led to us being in the happy position of being able to do this at all.” Marcellus looked at Marcia. “No doubt you know all about the eternal heat of dragon blood?”
Marcia was not sure she did, but she was not going to give Marcellus the satisfaction of admitting it. “Of course I do,” she snapped.