in her herb garden. Sarah was, for some reason Silas did not understand, wearing a sailor's boater. She also had Jenna's duck with her. Silas was not keen on the duck - the stubble gave him goose bumps when he looked at it and he thought the crocheted waistcoat was a sign that Sarah was going a little crazy.
"Oh, there you are," he said, heading along the neatly tended grass path toward the bed of mint that Sarah was absentmindedly poking at. "I've been looking everywhere for you."
Sarah gave Silas a wan half smile in reply, and as Silas and Maxie plowed through the defenseless patch of mint, she did not venture even a small protest. Silas, like Sarah, looked careworn. His straw-colored Heap curls had recently acquired a gray dusting of salt and pepper, his blue Ordinary Wizard robes hung loosely from him, and his silver Ordinary Wizard belt was pulled in a notch or two more than usual. Accompanied by the heady smell of crushed mint, Silas reached Sarah and launched straight into his prepared speech.
"You're not going to like this," he said, "but my mind is made up. Maxie and I are going into the Forest and we're not coming out until we've found him."
Sarah picked up the duck and hugged it tightly to her. It let out a strangled quack. "You are a pig-headed fool," she said. "How many times have I told you that if you would only get Marcia to do something about this horrible Darke Magyk that has trapped Nicko somewhere, then he'd be back in a moment. But you won't. You go on and on about the stupid Forest - "
Silas sighed. "I told you, Marcia says it's not Darke Magyk. There's no point asking her over and over again." Sarah glowered so Silas tried another tack. "Look, Sarah, I can't just do nothing, it's driving me crazy. It's been six months now since Jenna and Septimus came back without Nicko and I'm not waiting any longer. You had the same dream as I did. You know it means something."
Sarah remembered the dream she had had a few months after Nicko disappeared. He was walking through a forest deep in snow; it was twilight and in front of him a yellow light shone through the trees. There was a girl beside him, a little taller and older than he was, Sarah thought. The girl had long, white-blond hair and was wrapped in a wolfskin pelt. She pointed to the light ahead. Nicko took the girl's hand and together they hurried toward the light. At that moment Silas had started snoring and Sarah had woken up with a jolt. The next morning Silas had excitedly described a dream he had had about Nicko. To Sarah's amazement it was identical to hers.
Since that moment Silas had become convinced that Nicko was in the Forest and he wanted to go search for him. But Sarah had disagreed. The forest in the dream was not, she had told Silas, the Castle Forest. It was different, she was sure of that. Silas, in turn, had also disagreed. He knew the Forest, he said - and he was sure it was the Castle Forest.
In their time together Sarah and Silas did not always agree, but they would quickly resolve their differences, often when Silas brought home a few wildflowers or herbs for Sarah as a peace offering.
But this time there was no peace offering. Silas and Sarah's arguments about forests became increasingly bitter and they soon lost sight of the real reason for their unhappiness: Nicko's disappearance.
But now Silas had just bumped into the departing Jannit Maarten, who was carrying Nicko's ex-Apprentice Indentures. He had made his mind up. He was going into the Forest to find Nicko and no one was going to stop him - particularly Sarah.
Chapter 2 FREE!
F eed the Magogs, do not touch Sleuth, and don't go nosing around my room. Got that?" Simon Heap told his scowling assistant, Merrin Meredith.
"Yeah, yeah," sulked Merrin, who was sitting listlessly on the one comfortable chair in the Observatory. His dark, straggly hair hung limply over his face, masking a large pimple in the middle of his forehead that had sprung up overnight.
"You got that?" asked Simon crossly.
"I said 'yeah,' didn't I?" mumbled Merrin, swinging his long, gangly legs so that his feet hit the chair with an irritating regularity.
"And you better keep the place tidy," Lucy Gringe told him. "I don't want to come back to