Jenna did not answer, but she did not need to. The Chief Hermetic Scribe was not the best person in the Castle at reading people's expressions, but there was no mistaking the look of astonishment on Jenna's face.
“You may not be aware, Princess Jenna, but I have made an extensive study of Alchemical Glasses— extensive—and we actually have a specimen in the Hermetic Chamber. This morning, I saw a disturbance in that Glass. I made haste to the Wizard Tower to report the disturbance, which we are duty-bound to do by our Charter, and I met Madam Overstrand leaving in a distressed state. I have drawn my own conclusions and now respectfully ask if you will consent to accompany me to the Manuscriptorium,” said the Scribe, as if addressing a lecture hall of particularly slow scholars. “I have also asked Marcia Overstrand to meet us there.”
Marcia was about the last person Jenna wanted to see just then, as she knew she would have to tell her that she had caused Septimus's disappearance. But Jillie Djinn's mention of another Glass in the Manuscriptorium had raised her hopes.
Could it be possible that the old man in the Glass was just one of those weird old scribes from their spooky Spell Vault that Septimus used to talk about? Maybe he had just pulled Septimus through to the Manuscriptorium? Maybe Sep was waiting for her there right now, and then he'd spend the rest of the day telling her all about it until she was completely fed up? Maybe...
Anxious now to get to the Manuscriptorium, Jenna followed the bustling, bright-eyed Scribe down the narrow winding steps. Wolf Boy, who had been hanging around in the shadows, blending into the background like the Forest creature that he was at heart, joined them, causing Jillie to jump in surprise. At the foot of the steps, Jillie scraped her shoe once more and then took the side door out of the turret.
“I must say,” said Jillie self-importantly as she strode along the path around the back of the turret, “it is most gratifying when a theory is proved right. I had narrowed the whereabouts of the Queen's Room down to two positions. The first was down there—” Jillie Djinn waved her hand toward the old summer house by the riverbank, whose octagonal golden roof was just visible above the early-morning river mist. “Of course, Princess Jenna, I knew that your key would open both, but nothing else about the summer house made sense, although I did wonder whether its legend of the Black Fiend had been put about by the various Queens to keep people away. But naturally, by looking at all the facts and giving them due consideration, I chose the right place. Most interesting.”
“Interesting?” muttered Jenna under her breath, wondering if Septimus's disappearance was no more than a diverting academic exercise for the Scribe.
With Wolf Boy and Jenna in tow, Jillie Djinn rounded the base of the turret and emerged at the front of the Palace. She set off across the lawns toward the Gate, and as their feet made dark footprints in the dew, the Chief Hermetic Scribe continued to expound on various pet theories, for Jillie had a captive audience and she was not about to waste it. Her audience was not, however, appreciative; Jenna was too preoccupied with worrying about Septimus to listen and Wolf Boy gave up after the first sentence. The way that Jillie Djinn talked made his head ache.
Despite her diminutive size, Jillie kept up a fast pace and they were soon rushing along Wizard Way, which was beginning to stir. Wizard Way was one of the oldest streets in the Castle. It was a broad, straight avenue lined with beautiful silver torch posts. It ran from the Palace Gates at one end to the Great Arch of the Wizard Tower at the other. The houses and shops were built from the oldest yellow limestone from quarries emptied long ago. They were weathered and crooked but had a friendly feeling to them that Jenna loved. The Way was lined with countless small shops and printers, selling all manner of printed papers, inks, books, pamphlets and pens, plus an assortment of spectacles and headache pills for those who had spent far too long reading in dark corners.
As the shopkeepers and printers peered through their misty windows and decided against putting out their wares in the damp air, the first thing they saw was the Chief Hermetic Scribe striding down the Way, accompanied by an odd-looking boy with tangled hair and the Princess, who was carrying an old pair of boots.
Two-thirds down the Way, the trio stopped outside a small purple-painted shop with its window stacked so high with papers and books that it was impossible to see inside. On the door was the number 13, and over the window was the inscription: Magykal MANUSCRIPTORIUM AND SPELL CHECKERS INCORPORATED. Jillie Djinn, her ample figure almost filling the narrow doorway, regarded Jenna and Wolf Boy with a solemn air.
“The Hermetic Chamber is not to be entered by anyone who has not been inducted into the tenets of the Manuscriptorium,” she informed them ponderously. “However, in these difficult circumstances I will make an exception for the Princess, but the Princess only. Indeed there is a possibility of precedence as I have reason to believe that some of the more ancient Queens have been admitted to the Chamber.” With that, the door to the Manuscriptorium opened with a little ping and Jillie Djinn stepped inside.
“ What did she say?” Wolf Boy asked Jenna.
“She said you can't come in,” said Jenna.
“Oh.”
“Well, not into the Hermetic Chamber anyway.”
“The what?”
“The Hermetic Chamber. I don't know what it is, but Sep told me a bit about it. He's been in there.”
“Maybe he's there now,” said Wolf Boy, brightening.
“Well, I—I suppose he could be,” said Jenna, hardly daring to hope.
“You go in and have a look. I'll wait outside like she said, and I'll see you and 412 in a minute. How about that?”
Jenna grinned. “Sounds good,” she said, and she followed Jillie Djinn inside.
13
The Navigator Tin
As Jenna walked into the front office of the Manuscriptorium, she heard a strange noise, rather like the stifled squeak of a distressed hamster, coming from behind the door. She peered around and saw the shadowy figure of a slightly chubby boy with a shock of black hair wedged behind the door handle. “Beetle?”
she asked. “Is that you?”
The distressed hamster, who was indeed Beetle, holding the door open for his Chief Hermetic Scribe, replied with another squeak, which Jenna decided to take as a yes.
Jenna glanced about the Manuscriptorium with some trepidation, but to her relief there was no sign of Marcia.
“This way, please, Jenna. We shall have to proceed without Madam Marcia.” Jillie Djinn's voice came from somewhere at the back of the office and Jenna hurried toward it, skirting a large desk at the far end. She joined the Scribe beside a small door in a half wood, half glass partition wall. Jillie Djinn pushed open the door, and Jenna followed her into the Manuscriptorium itself.
A hushed silence hung over the Manuscriptorium, broken only by the sound of the scratching of pens and the occasional twang of a broken nib. Twenty-one scribes were hard at work copying out Incantations and Invocations, Chants and Charms, Summonses and Spells and even the occasional love letter for those who wanted to make an impression. Each scribe was perched at a high desk, laboring under a small pool of yellow light cast by one of the twenty-one oil lamps, which were suspended on long and sometimes dangerously frayed ropes from the vaulted ceiling.