“Can I help?” Wolf Boy asked quietly, a concerned look in his dark brown eyes.
“I don't know...” Jenna almost wailed and then stopped. She must keep calm, she told herself. She must think what to do. She must.
“412's in trouble, isn't he?” asked Wolf Boy.
Jenna nodded again, not trusting herself to say anything. Wolf Boy put his arm around Jenna's shoulders. “Then we'd better get him out of trouble ... yeah?”
Jenna nodded.
“I'll come with you. Wait, I'd better leave a note for Aunt Zelda and tell her where we've gone.” Wolf Boy rushed over to Aunt Zelda's desk, which looked faintly ridiculous with duck feet on the ends of its legs and a pair of arms to help with the paperwork, both courtesy of Marcia Overstrand. Aunt Zelda hated these additions but Wolf Boy had learned to use them to his advantage.
“Piece of paper, please,” he asked the arms. The rather clumsy hands on the ends of the arms scrabbled around in the desk drawer, took out a crumpled piece of paper, smoothed it out and put it neatly on the desk.
“Pen, please,” asked Wolf Boy.
The right hand picked a quill pen from a tray on top of the desk and held it surprisingly delicately, hovering above the paper.
“Now write: Dear Aunt Zelda—what's the matter?” The left hand was impatiently drumming its fingers on the paper. "Oh, sorry. Ink, please. Now write: Dear Aunt Zelda, Jenna and me have gone to rescue 412. With love from 409. Oh, and Jenna.
Love from Jenna too. That's it, yes, thank you. Thank you, you can stop now. Put the pen away. No, you don't need to blot it, just leave it on her desk and make sure she sees it." The hands rather fussily put away the pen, and then the arms folded themselves somewhat crossly, as if dissatisfied with being asked to write so little.
“Let's go,” said Jenna, stepping back through the door of the Unstable Potions and Partikular Poisons cupboard.
“Coming,” said Wolf Boy, and then remembering something, he dashed back to the fire and picked up an uneaten cabbage sandwich.
Jenna eyed the sandwich warily. “Do you really like those?” she asked.
“No. Can't stand 'em. But 412 does. Thought he'd like this one.”
“He's going to need a whole lot more than a cabbage sandwich, 409.” Jenna sighed.
“Yeah, well. Look, I'll follow you and you can tell me about it. Okay?”
Wolf Boy and Jenna emerged from the cupboard in the Queen's Room with Wolf Boy in a somber mood. Jenna had told him what had happened. They walked past the Queen's chair, unaware of her shocked expression at the apparently sudden change that Septimus had undergone—from neatly dressed Apprentice to a half-wild-looking boy. As Wolf Boy passed the ghost, he felt the hair on the back of his neck rise; he looked around like a wary animal and a low growl rose from the back of his throat. “Something funny in here, Jen,” he whispered.
Jenna shivered, unnerved by Wolf Boy's feral growl. “Come on,” she said. “Let's get out of here.” She grabbed Wolf Boy's hand and pulled him through the door. Jillie Djinn, recently Chosen Chief Hermetic Scribe, was waiting for them.
12
Jillie Djinn
“Miss Djinn!” gasped Jenna, taken aback at the unexpected sight of the Scribe's indigo robes with their impressive gold flashes. How did Jillie Djinn know where she had been? And how come the Scribe knew where the Queen's Room was? Even Marcia did not know that.
“Your Majesty.” Jillie Djinn sounded a little breathless. She inclined her head respectfully, her new silk robes rustling as she moved.
“Please don't call me that,” Jenna said angrily.
"Call me Jenna. Just Jenna. I am not Queen yet.
And I don't ever want to be either. You just end up being a horrible person doing horrible things to everyone. It's awful."
Jillie Djinn looked at Jenna with a concerned expression and was not sure how to reply. The Chief Hermetic Scribe had no children and, apart from a very solemn and precocious Temple Scribe in a Far Country some years ago, Jenna was the first girl of eleven that Jillie had spoken to since she herself was eleven. Miss Djinn had devoted her life to her career and had spent years traveling in the Far Countries learning the arcane secrets of the many and varied worlds of knowledge. She had also spent some years researching the hidden secrets of the Castle, which she was pleased to see had not been wasted.
“Jenna,” Jillie Djinn corrected herself, “Madam Marcia wishes to see you. Her Apprentice is missing and she fears the worst.” Jillie Djinn's gaze alighted on Septimus's boots, which hung by their laces from Jenna's right hand. “I assume that I am right that something of that nature has occurred?”
Puzzled, Jenna nodded. She wondered how Marcia could possibly already know what had happened. And then she sniffed. And sniffed again. A strange smell of dragon poo was in the air. Jillie Djinn sniffed too. She scraped her right shoe—a neat black lace-up—vigorously on the floor, inspected the sole, then scraped it again.
“Would I be right also, Princess, if I were to say that there is a Glass in the Queen's Room?” Jillie Djinn's bright green eyes fastened onto Jenna expectantly. Jillie had many theories about many things and she was excited to think that one of them might be working out right now.