The first snow of winter had fallen the night before, but this morning the sun shone bright on Wizard Way, melting the few flakes that had stuck around and leaving the stone slabs slick and treacherous underfoot. It beamed on the proprietors of shops, who were standing in their doorways, soaking up the last precious rays while they still could. It warmed the garbage piles in alleys behind those shops, which slowly but surely began to emit a ripe scent that delighted every stray dog in the area. And it glowed on the untidy blond hair of Septimus Heap, ExtraOrdinary Apprentice, who was hurrying toward the Manuscriptorium as fast as he could.
Unfortunately, that wasn't very fast, as Septimus had woken up feeling decidedly unwell—hot and shivery at the same time, with a raw pain in his throat and a suspicious stuffiness on one side of his nose. He'd made his way down to the kitchen to find that Marcia had already gone out, leaving a half-finished pot of cold coffee and a note that instructed him to meet her outside the Manuscriptorium at precisely nine thirty-seven, with the word "precisely" underlined twice. Now it was nine thirty-two and he was almost there—in fact, he could see Marcia just ahead of him, striding along in the determined way that made people part on either side of her like a flock of frightened sheep. He put on an extra burst of speed and managed to catch her up.
"Marcia." His voice came out as thick and croaky as a toad's, and he tried again. "Marcia."
"What?" Marcia braked to an abrupt halt with the pointy toe of a python shoe. "Oh, Septimus, good. I was starting to wonder if you'd got my note after all."
"I got it," said Septimus, holding it up clutched in one sweaty, ink-stained fist. "I'm here. What are we doing at the Manuscriptorium?"
"Well you may ask," said Marcia. "I put in an order to have some documents copied two weeks ago, and every time I check to see if it's ready yet, they tell me 'not yet, Madam Marcia, there are still seventy-three orders ahead of yours in the queue.' The queue, I ask you! So today we are both going to stand there until they—hang on a minute."
She leaned down and stared hard into Septimus' face, giving him a start. He had mostly got used to the brilliant green of Wizard eyes—he hadn't had much choice, as his own had been changing color steadily since the moment he'd worked that first Unseen in Aunt Zelda's cottage—but after being taught all his life that a Wizard's green eyes were the outward symbol of inward corruption and evil, it was unnerving to have a pair of them so close. They were especially shocking on Marcia, whose dark hair and pale olive complexion made the green seem even more piercing than usual.
"What's the matter?" Marcia demanded. "Are you ill?"
"Um. A bit. I think," said Septimus. "But I'm okay, really I –" He felt a sudden, massive tickle in his nose and turned his head so as not to sneeze on Marcia, who he knew would not take well to such treatment.
"Why on earth are you here, then?" Marcia passed him her handkerchief. "You should have stayed in bed."
"I should?" asked Septimus blankly. The idea of staying in bed hadn't even crossed his mind. The Young Army didn't give days off for illness – the Leader Cadet had often said that unless you were dead, you were well enough to get yourself to morning roll call, and if you were dead, you had jolly well better arrange for someone to bring your body along to roll call anyway. "But you said to come and..."
"Well, yes, but I didn't know you'd be in such a state this morning when I said it." Marcia waved away the damp, crumpled handkerchief as he tried to give it back to her. "No, keep it. Look, my appointment at the Manuscriptorium is in—" She consulted her timepiece. "Three minutes and seventeen seconds. I'll just have a few words with the scribe on duty, and then I'll take you back to the Wizard Tower."
"I can go on my own," Septimus protested."
Marcia made a tutting noise. "I think not. You look as if you might fall over on the way. Come along."
Knowing there was no point in arguing, Septimus sighed and trailed along in Marcia's wake until, with a jingle of the bell, they entered the Manuscriptorium's small front office. Normally he enjoyed the atmosphere inside the Manuscriptorium, with its dim light and mingled smells of wax and ink and fusty old paper, but today all he wanted to do was find a place to sit down. Since there wasn't one, he stood there and drooped, feeling worse by the minute, while somewhere far above him, Marcia berated the scribe at the desk about her documents and the scribe replied with a lot of excuses that Septimus could have told him wouldn't work. His head ached so badly by now that he wondered whether he might have some sort of terrible Sickenesse that he'd caught from one of the Magyk artifacts in the Wizard Tower, but on balance thought it was probably just flu. He stared at Marcia's silk-clad arm, mere inches away from his face, and thought how nice it would be to lean against it and rest. It would be cool and smooth under his hot cheek, and—
"Septimus?" Marcia sounded surprised, and to his utter mortification, he realized he wasn't imagining it; he'd actually done it. She and the scribe had stopped their argument and were both looking down at him in astonishment. With an effort, he pulled away.
"Sorry," he muttered.
The scribe saw his opportunity to escape and seized it. "I wouldn't want to presume, ExtraOrdinary, but it seems your young Apprentice isn't quite himself. Perhaps you'd like to come back?"
"Oh, I will come back." Marcia drew herself up to her full, majestic height. "You can be sure of that. And when I do, I expect to find my copies finished and waiting for me. In triplicate. With purple ribbons on!"
Her voice was harsh, but the arm she put around Septimus's shoulders was gentle, and he let her guide him out the front door and back up Wizard Way uncomplainingly. The walk back to the Wizard Tower felt like the longest of his life—which was saying a lot, considering some of the forced marches he'd been on in the past—but he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other until they were through the great tower doors. There, Marcia herded him to the spiral staircase, up to the private apartment they shared, and into his own room, where she made him take off his boots and lie down.
"Just be still, Septimus, I'll be right back."
Septimus raised one hand in weak acknowledgement. The last thing he wanted to do was go anywhere. His bed had never felt so heavenly, or his blanket so fluffy and comforting, like a summer cloud. He closed his eyes and let himself drift away, and it seemed only a few seconds before she was there again.
"Here, take this. It's Charmed to bring down your fever."
"Okay," Septimus mumbled. He was shivering and sweating, his head still full of dull thudding pain, but he managed to sit up halfway. Marcia pushed a silvery round thing the size of a boiled sweet into his mouth and held a cup of cold water to his lips, but he didn't swallow fast enough and horrible bitterness melted across his tongue. He choked, and she put a hand on the back of his neck to steady him while he drank and drank to wash the taste away, then let him sink back onto his pillows.
"Did it go down?" Marcia bent over him with the little crease between her brows that meant she was worried, and he nodded to reassure her. "Good. I don't want to send you to the Sick Bay unless there's no other choice. I don't trust some of the witchy business they get up to in there. Herbs and such." She pulled a face. "Really, Septimus, I don't know what you were thinking, going out in this state."
Septimus licked his lips, which still tasted unpleasantly of Marcia's Magyk medicine. "We weren't allowed to be ill in the Young Army. There was a rhyme that went—"
"Never mind how it went," Marcia snapped, but softened at once as she took in her Apprentice's pitiful state. She smoothed the blanket out and tucked it more securely around him while she pulled herself together. "Sorry, Septimus. I forget sometimes that you were in that dreadful Young Army for your entire life. I suppose it's the sort of thing that will take more than a few months to get over. Anyway, you're to stay right here in your room and rest until I have decided you're well enough to get up, is that understood?"
That sounded just fine to Septimus. He nodded again, and Marcia patted his blanket-covered shoulder a bit awkwardly and stood up to go.
"I'll bring you some books from the Tower Library later," she said, "and some soup, if the wretched stove will cooperate. Or…perhaps you'd like me to send to the Palace for Sarah Heap? She doesn't much like the Wizard Tower, and goodness knows I certainly—" Here, for once, Marcia seemed to think better of what she was about to say. "Well, she is your mother, after all, and I thought you might want her."
Septimus thought about Sarah fussing around him, fluffing his pillows and trying to kiss his forehead and stroke his hair. He knew she cared about him, but Marcia's brand of caring was less overwhelming sometimes, and this seemed like one of those times. "No, it's okay. She'll only be worried for nothing. You can tell her later, when I'm better."
"You're quite sure?"
"Yeah," Septimus said, yawning and burrowing down into the bed. "I'll be fine here with you."
He was half asleep already, but even in that state, he thought he saw a smile on Marcia's face as she left his room.