Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Chapter two! Please enjoy! (Neither michasl nor thelonelyonlychild owns the Septimus Heap series. [This is the last disclaimer we will do for this story.])

Nicko was surprised to hear Ivy's answer. "Are you visiting royalty, or something?"

"Nope!" Ivy grinned back at him, popping the p.

"Then why are you going there?"

"Well, we need a place to stay, don't we?" Ivy stated this like it was obvious. "And what's more vacant than the Palace?"

Nicko decided not to answer this. He glanced down at Sky in his arms. She was still frozen in shock, staring up at him, cheeks stained pink. She had small, pointed features, and a dusting of light brown freckles across her nose and under her big brown eyes. She sort of reminded him of a mouse. A very cute mouse.

Wait, cute? I don't even know her...

They reached the gates of the Palace, and Ivy strolled through them, her gait confident. Reaching the huge doors, she pushed them ceremoniously open with a bang, and walked in like she owned the place. Her tall black leather boots clacked on the stone floor. She strode into the middle of the front room, stopped, then lifted her hands up and clapped loudly twice.

"Guest rooms!" she shouted, then froze expectantly, as if waiting for servants to come out of the walls and help her.

When Nicko reached Ivy, he was about to say something about her attitude, when Sky blinked twice, looked around her, then calmly rolled out of his arms and landed flat on the floor. There was a muffled "ow," and she lay still, her wet clothes creating pools all around her.

Before anyone could say anything else, Queen Jenna walked into the room. She froze, staring with raised eyebrows at the spectacle in front of her.

Her brother Nicko stood, in dripping wet clothes, his arms out a little, and his face pointed down, where an equally wet girl in a red dress lay on the floor. The girl from earlier, Ivy, was standing dramatically in front of them, her hands raised as if she had just clapped.

When Ivy saw Jenna standing there, she removed her hood, shaking loose her long brown and scarlet hair, and said, "Ah, Jenna- can I leave off your royal title? thanks- I'm so glad you passed by, the service here is terrible, you really need to train your staff better."

Jenna somehow found a way to speak, and she said, "What are you doing here?"

"Well, obviously we need a place to stay," Ivy said, rolling her blue eyes- wait, was she a witch?

There came a unintelligible mumble from where Sky was lying on the floor.

"What did I tell you about mumbling?" snapped Ivy.

"And we don't have any money," groaned Sky.

"Well, yes, that too," agreed Ivy.

Jenna's glance slid to Nicko's shocked face. "And why is Nicko here?"

"Oh, he saved Sky," said Ivy with a nonchalant wave of her hand. "No big deal really. Nicko isn't the first." She pronounced his name like nee-ko.

Jenna's eyebrows rose even further. "Ah." What she wanted to say was, ''No, leave, this is MY Palace,'' but Nicko was here and it would be bad if she did something that rude. It might counteract the charm's effects. "Well, of course you can stay here, we have plenty of room!"

Ivy lifted an eyebrow elegantly, "We were going to stay anyways..."

Jenna's smile became a little stiff. The girl on the floor lifted a hand slowly and placed it a little in front of her head on the floor. Then she dragged herself towards that point. Then she did it again. She was dragging herself across the floor, on her face. The contents of the room, excluding Ivy, watched in bemusement. The girl reached the foot of the stairs and lifted herself up to sit on them. When she noticed all the attention on herself, she lifted a hand and waved merrily. "Oh, dont mind me, the floor was a bit uncomfortable."

Ivy raised an eyebrow. "Im sure." She then turned back to Jenna. "So, we'll just go find ourselves a room, then." She faced Nicko. "Thanks for saving Sky, as small a feat as it was. Bye, everyone!" She flounced to the stairs.

Sky stood and wiggled her fingers at Jenna and Nicko. "Ta!"

After a minute of silence, upstairs, there was a muffled moan. "MY HAAAT! IT'S GOOOOONNNNE!"

"SHUT UP WE'LL GET YOU A NEW ONE!"

"IT WON'T BE THE SAAAAAAMMMME!"

"GOOD THAT HAT WAS HIDEOUS ANYWAYS!"

The cries faded away as Ivy and Sky walked further into the Palace. Jenna and Nicko exchanged glances.

"Well," Nicko commented. "I'm leaving, have fun dealing with those two."

"Wait, don't leave me here with them!" Jenna tried to stop her adopted brother from leaving.

"Sorry, Jen!" Nicko walked faster out the door. "You're on your own!"

Jenna sighed. She hated when her tools disobeyed her wishes.

Ivy opened up the fifteenth door they came to, sure that this would be the one that finally turned out to be an unoccupied room, not a closet or some other used space. Luckily, it was definitely not a closet, and was probably uninhabited.

The place was huge. The front room swept out, with a small sitting area with a couch and chairs on a carpet. Windows looked out onto a gorgeous view of the bustling Castle.

Sky ran towards the next room. "OH MY GAHD THIS BED IS HUGE-NORMOUS!" There was a thump as she presumably jumped onto said huge-normous bed.

Ivy followed Sky. The bed was covered with blue and bronze bed covers. Tassled pillows flopped to the floor as Sky leaped and rolled around. Ivy looked to the right and saw an equally large bed by the window. "DIBS!" she shouted, and ran to jump on that one.

"I hope you are finding the accommodations pleasing?" said a voice by the door. Ivy froze, (Sky continued rolling) and slid to the floor with a thump. Standing in the doorway was Queen Jenna, with a disdainful expression.

Ivy adopted her own disdainful expression, which was considerably more impressive than Jenna's. "This will do, I suppose," she sniffed.

Jenna scowled. "Just so you two idiots know, you are in my Palace in my Castle, and as long as you are here, you must obey and worship me as your Queen."

Ivy raised her eyebrows. "We're American," she said, at the same time that Sky said, "Idiots? Can you solve this math problem?"

Jenna made an indignant sound. "Of course I can."

Sky then proceeded to rattle off a math problem. "7y-4, then in parentheses (3x-8) over 9 equals 7-2 over 3x. Solve for x."

Jenna froze. What the heck had she just said? What was she talking about?

After a moment, she stammered, "Uh-uhm, I don't need to answer to the likes of you."

The two girls glanced at each other. "I knew she couldn't do it," Sky said, shaking her head. "The answer is x equals 95-63y divided by -6. Obviously."

Jenna tried to hide her incredulity. How on earth did she solve that impossible problem?

Ivy smiled kindly at Jenna. "It's ok that you aren't as smart as we are," she said. "Don't worry, we won't laugh in front of you."

Jenna pursed her lips. "Well, have a nice stay," she spat, then whirled around, shutting the bedroom door behind her and leaving the room.

Behind her, she heard hysterical laughter.

We hoped you enjoyed that! Sorry if it's short. And btw, that math problem took forever to figure out, and we probs got it wrong anyway. If you want to do it, go ahead. We will update ASAP. In case anyone cares.

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