at the door. Ullr, who was lying across the door, got to his feet and growled. Her heart racing, Jenna climbed down to Septimus, who was asleep on the bunk below, and shook him awake. "Sep...listen!"
Septimus sprang awake, thinking for one awful moment that he was back in the Young Army.
"Wheerrr - wassat?"
"Something's trying to get in," whispered Jenna.
"Oh. Oh, crumbs." Ullr growled again. A gust of wind shook the hut and outside Septimus heard scritch...scratch...scritch... like long fingernails being dragged down the thin wooden door.
Wide awake now, Septimus sprang out of his bunk. He put both hands on the door, and muttered his SafeShield Spell once again. The scritch...scratch...scritch continued. Why wasn't it working?
Flustered, Septimus tried an Anti-Darke incantation. At that, the scratching stopped.
Jenna and Septimus listened, hardly daring to breathe. Outside, the trees tapped their branches like long, impatient fingers drumming on the roof of the hut, but there was no more scratching at the door.
Beetle stirred and mumbled in his sleep something that sounded like "Wotcha, Foxy," then with much creaking of his bunk he turned over and was quiet again. Ullr lay down once more and positioned himself across the doorway.
"It's gone," whispered Septimus.
"Thanks, Sep," whispered Jenna. She burrowed down beneath the rough hut blankets and her wolverine skin and soon fell asleep.
But Septimus lay awake. It wasn't the howl of the wind that kept him from sleeping, or the tapping of the branches on the roof of the hut, or even wondering what Darke creature had been outside. What kept Septimus from sleeping was the lapis lazuli stone with a golden Q inscribed into it. Every time he tried to get comfortable, the wretched thing somehow managed to stick into him. Irritably, he delved deep into his tunic pocket and pulled out the Stone. It lay warm and heavy on his palm. It was odd, he thought, how the light from the lantern made the Stone look so green - it didn't do that to anything else. And then a horrible feeling of dread shot through him like a dagger. It wasn't a trick of the light - it was the Stone itself. The Questing Stone had turned green.
Like a Transfixed rabbit Septimus stared at the Stone,
Alther's hurried whispered words at the Gathering spinning around his head like a dreadful nursery rhyme:
Blue to get ready,
Green to go.
Yellow to guide you
Through the snow.
Orange to warn you
That over you'll go.
Then Red will be the final glow.
Now seek the Black; there's no going back.
Green to go - that's what it was. Green to go on the Queste. Septimus lay down and gazed, unfocused, at the rough planks only a few inches from his face, panicky thoughts whirling around his head.
The first thought was bad enough: he was on the Queste - he was on the Queste .
The second thought was even worse: If he was on the Queste, how were they going to find Nicko?
But the third was the worst of all: How was he going to tell Jenna?
Chapter 37 AN INVITATION
M arcia was enjoying being back in charge of the Wizard Tower.
As soon as the last of the Gathering had meandered off, somewhat confused at the sudden ending of their outing, Marcia had inspected the Wizard Tower from top to bottom, checking for any stragglers.
She had had enough of ExtraOrdinary Wizard ghosts to last her quite a while and she had no wish to bump into one snoozing in a dark forgotten corner in a few days' time. She found one asleep in an Ordinary Wizard's larder and another wandering around the fifteenth floor corridor looking for her teeth. It was, Marcia reflected, as she checked the very last cupboard in the Hall, and flushed out a sleeping Catchpole, not unlike fumigating mice.
Having reestablished her authority in the Tower to her satisfaction - and having checked on the more elderly Ordinary Wizards - Marcia had decided to turn her attention to Finding Septimus. She assumed he had either gone into the Forest to be with his brothers or had made his way to Aunt Zelda's on the Marram Marshes. Either way, she knew a Find Spell would do the trick and take her to him.
Marcia did not know that - at the very moment she had closed the purple door to her rooms and breathed a sigh of relief - Jenna, Septimus and Beetle were walking through an ancient Forest Way into a silent, frozen forest. With a huge sense of relief, she had climbed the narrow