Her heart leaped when the thin wooden door popped open, leaving her crawling through another fireplace into the dazzling daylight.
The room was empty! Roxy could have danced for joy, but this wasn’t the time.
“Clock,” she muttered, gazing around. “Dodgy Old Clock…”
The office was, she couldn’t help noticing, almost as ghastly as Bijou’s bedroom. This was mostly because there were photos of Minister Splendid everywhere: Minister Splendid on horseback; Minister Splendid gazing into the distance on a golf course; Minister Splendid beaming toothily as he chinked champagne glasses with a rather weary-looking Queen Ariadne.
But there, beneath a photo of Minister Splendid winning a cycle race, was an elaborate gold desk.
And on the desk sat a dodgy-looking old clock.
It was a wooden carriage clock, about the size of a small shoebox. The wood – cherry, perhaps, or a light mahogany – was scuffed in places, and the clock face itself was battered.
It was running thirteen minutes fast.
Roxy checked her watch: twenty-one minutes past ten. The Dodgy Old Clock was displaying twenty-six minutes to eleven.
“This is it!” She held it up to the light that poured through the windows, and studied it. “Mirror, I don’t suppose you know how to get into the clock? Does the back come off, or is there a hidden panel at the bottom?”
“I’ve not a clue,” said Mirror. “But here’s a thought: we’re in a massive hurry. So bash it open on the desk – all sorted! Bosh! No worry!”
“I’m not going to bash it open!” Roxy turned the clock over, but there was nothing to indicate it could open. “I should never have lied about being an expert lock-picker! Jones would know how to get into it!”
“Now listen, dear,” said Mirror. “Believe me, you are smarter than you think. Remember that it’s Jones who, at the present, cannot blink. The queen and her dark mirror couldn’t take control of you. So take a moment, Roxy, and you’ll work out what to do,” it finished kindly.
It was such a shock hearing Mirror not panic for once that Roxy actually listened.
She found herself taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, the way she always did to clear her mind when she was about to pull her memory trick.
And then something occurred to her.
“What happens,” she murmured, “if I just … set the correct time?”
Gently, so as not to damage the clock face, she reached for the minute hand and eased it back … eleven … twelve … thirteen minutes.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then there was the faintest click as the clock face sprang, lightly, open.
Inside the clock was a crevice the shape of a spindly isosceles triangle. And it was completely empty.
“It’s not there,” Roxy whispered.
“Not there?” Mirror was sounding panicked again. “That simply cannot be! The clue was quite specific! Oh, Roxy, Roxy, Roxy, this is properly horrific…”
Roxy stared at the clock, her heart feeling just as empty as that triangle. So she’d been wrong. Mirror’s clue must have been talking about something else, another clock, probably, or maybe she’d misunderstood entirely and…
That triangle shape, though.
Roxy frowned, and gazed at it more closely. It was weirdly familiar. She put her fingertip into the groove and ran it down, along and back up the sides of the little triangle. It even felt familiar, if it were possible for a small empty isosceles triangle shape to feel familiar.
And then, quite suddenly, she knew.
She knew that exact triangle, its size and its contours, because she’d seen and touched and held that exact triangle before.
“It’s all right,” she said, above Mirror’s wailing. “It’s OK. Because you see, Mirror, I’ve actually got the Stone. I’ve had it all along, I just didn’t realize.”
She reached deep into her jacket pocket and felt for the pointless educational toy from the Proon Puffs packet.
She pulled it out, put Mirror down on the desk, and placed the slim isosceles triangle shape into the spindly isosceles triangle-shaped slot in the back of the clock.
She already knew that it would be a perfect fit.
“You had it in your pocket?” Mirror said. “How the heck did you not know?”
“I thought it was a free giveaway from a cereal packet,” Roxy mumbled. Her head ached with the impossibility of trying to figure out this crazy, crazy turn of events. “I’ve literally no idea what it was doing in the Proon Puffs.”
“You know what,” interrupted Mirror, “tell me later, ’cos we really have to go.”
“Yes. Of course.” Roxy deftly edged the Stone back out of the clock and held on to it tightly.
And then she picked up Mirror, ran for the fireplace and scrambled back into the vault.
24
“Now, Roxy: listen, hear me,” Mirror began, its voice jumpy from being bounced up and down as Roxy pelted along the dark tunnel. “We cannot give up the Stone! Bellissima is bad enough when not completely grown! Her powers will come flooding back; she’ll overthrow the city! And after that, who knows? But rest assured, it won’t be…”
There was a loud thud as Roxy ran smack into someone coming the other way along the tunnel.
“… pretty,” finished Mirror feebly from the shallow puddle into which it had fallen.
“What…?” Roxy mumbled, her head smarting. “Who…?”
“Oh my stars, I’m so sorry,” came a voice in the darkness as someone began to help her to her feet. “I didn’t see you there! Well, obviously I didn’t, because it’s so dark down here, and I need my glasses…”
“Frankie?” exclaimed Roxy, just able to make out his familiar face. “Is it really you?”
“Oh, my dear child!” Frankie gasped, and gathered her to where his bosom would have been if he hadn’t – still – been trapped in the body of a ten-year-old boy. “What in heaven’s name are you doing down here?”
“I could ask you the same question!”
“I’m looking for Skinny, of course.”
“Skinny’s down here too?”
“Yes. Somewhere. They brought us both here yesterday, straight from Sector Seven, and they left us in the cells guarded by some extremely uncivil SMOGs. So when the one guarding me had to go and find a first-aid kit for his friend – I think he’d been punched in the nose or something – I decided enough was enough. I’m on the run, dearie!” Frankie let out a hoot of excitement. “Now, if you could help me track down Skinny’s cell… Hold on. Where’s my goddaughter?”
“If Jones is whom you speak of, then she’s in a sorry state,” yelled Mirror from its puddle. “We have to go and save her, and we’re running blooming late!”
“Who on earth said that?” Frankie looked around, astonished.
“This talking mirror,” said Roxy, grabbing first Mirror and then Frankie’s hand. “I’ll explain later. But Jones is in a sorry state, Frankie, and I need your help.”
“I knew it!” shrieked Frankie. “My earlobes have been itching like mad for the last ten minutes!”
Roxy began pulling Frankie along the tunnel with her. “Right, so I’m going to pretend to give Queen Bellissima the Seventh Stone, and I need you to—”
“Queen Bellissima? Seventh Stone?” Frankie gazed at her. “What kind of mess have you girls got yourselves into?”
“OK, the Queen Bellissima stuff – not our fault. And the Stone … well, I’ve kind of had it in my pocket since yesterday morning, but in fairness, I thought it was just a free gift from a cereal box. Though I’ve got no idea how it got into the cereal box in the first place. Look, Frankie,” Roxy went on as they neared the end of the tunnel, “we’ve got to pretend to give Queen Bellissima the Stone so she’ll unhypnotize Jones.”
“She’s been hypnotized?”
“I don’t know exactly. Whatever it is, the evil mirror tried it on me, too, but it didn’t work.” A thought quite suddenly popped into Roxy’s
head. “Oh! You don’t think that’s because I had the Stone in my pocket, do you? That maybe it protected me from the Dark Magic or something?”
“Oh no, dear, I don’t think so,” said Frankie. “The Witching Stones are completely inert until a spell is performed through them. If you really want my opinion,” he went on, patting her hand, “I’ll bet any immunity you have is simply down to you, and that one-in-a-million mind of yours. You’re a heck of a lot stronger than you think, dearie. And you can do this.”
“I can. I can.” Roxy was actually starting to believe it herself now. This was not the time for self-doubt. They’d reached the end of the tunnel and Bijou’s room was – hopefully – the other side of this wall. Roxy opened her hand to reveal the pale grey triangular stone she was holding, and was rewarded by an awed gasp from Frankie. “So, if the Stone will magnify whatever spell you perform, maybe you could cast a massive spell on the evil mirror to trap Queen Bellissima inside once and for all?”
“Oh, my dear.” Frankie looked downcast. “I love your faith in me, but you’ve seen my spells in action. It’s no good being super-powerful if it’s wildly inaccurate. Though, I suppose I can at least block any spell she hurls at us…” He thought for a moment and swallowed hard. “I’ll try Exodus Magicam, Exodus Magicam – that’s the most reliable spell-blocker I know. Stay behind me, dear. I’ll do my best.”
Roxy nodded, handed Frankie the Stone and then scrambled up through the hole in the tunnel wall.
25
“A-ha!” hissed the Dark Glass as soon as it saw Roxy appear. “The time was ticking! I’m so glad that you’ve returned. I think your friend was starting to feel positively spurned.”
Roxy, dashing to Jones’s side, was pretty sure her friend wasn’t feeling anything at all. Her mouth was slack, her skin pallid and her eyes blank holes where two sparkling gems used to be.
“Jones,” she said urgently. “It’s OK. It’s me. I’m going to get you out of this. We’re a team, remember?”
“How sweet!” the Dark Glass chuckled. “And now I see you’ve brought another little chum…”
“Too right she has!” yelled Frankie, as he followed Roxy out of the fireplace. He planted his feet squarely on the floor, raised the Stone high in the air and pointed directly at the Dark Glass with his other hand. “Magnificatus Diabolicum!”
A luminous lilac light shot out of the end of Frankie’s fingers at tremendous speed towards the Dark Glass.
There was an ear-splitting crash as the Glass shattered into a thousand – no, a hundred thousand – crystalline shards.
Roxy dived to the floor to avoid the explosion of glass, dragging a rigid Jones down with her.
“Didn’t you say you were just going to block her magic?” she gasped to Frankie.
“I did, but then I got all carried away with the moment and tried something more complicated, an anti-Dark Magic charm … but oh dear, oh dear,” Frankie wailed. “I said Magnificatus instead of Minimicatus, didn’t I? That was totally the wrong way round! Huge mistake! Huge!”
Something was emerging from the cloud of glass-dust that had been sent up by the shattering mirror.
And the something was big.
It was bright, too: giving off such a violent green glow that Roxy shielded her eyes. From behind her hand she could see a human face, still in the process of forming itself.
“Well, well,” hissed a mouth from the middle of the face, as feline eyes and a long nose and striking cheekbones all began to arrange themselves in their correct positions. “You little fairy fool. Whatever have you done? Don’t get me wrong: it’s good for me. I’m here. I’m back. I’ve won.”
“Don’t speak too soon, dearie.” Frankie, his own face green with Queen Bellissima’s reflected glow, raised his hand for a second spell, determined to fix his mistake. Light began to fizz at the end of his fingertips, forming a huge lilac ball. Even Frankie looked taken aback for a moment at how much more powerful his magic was now he had the Stone. “You’re not protected by that mirror any more, Your Former Highness! So … Minimicatus Diabolicum!”
The huge lilac ball flew through the air towards Bellissima. The moment it touched her glow, it bounced straight off, struck Frankie full in the face, and knocked him right back through the fireplace.
There was a brief, terrible silence.
“A sneak attack?” hissed Queen Bellissima. Her body shape was forming now, draped in the shimmering fabric of a purple gown. “You want me dead? How rude – I feel rejected. Of course, it failed. And now you’re just one human, unprotected.”
Roxy’s brain ran through her options. Even if Bellissima’s magic skills were a tiny bit on the rusty side after twenty years diminished to a mere cloud of gas and locked up in a top-secret prison, she was still – there was no way of getting around this – a massively evil super-witch. Frankie’s mistaken Magnificatus spell had just made her even more powerful, and clearly now a Minimicatus spell was useless against her.
But Roxy, of course, had something this massively evil super-witch didn’t have.
“Not unprotected,” she said, darting to the spot where Frankie had just been and grabbing the Stone from the floor. “I’ve got the Seventh Stone, remember?”
This appeared to be the funniest thing Queen Bellissima had heard in two decades. More alarmingly, as she shrieked with laughter, Jones began to emit a flat, robotic hahaha of her own.
“Oh yes, you have the Stone,” Bellissima cackled. “But still, your situation’s sticky. To have the Stone is simple; it’s the using it that’s tricky. For let’s be clear: you’re nobody. You get it? Catch my drift? You’re nothing but a silly child: no talent, skill or gift.”
Which was when Roxy closed her eyes.
Because she did have a gift. She did have a talent. And she knew what she needed to do. She needed to conjure up something she’d once read.
It was going to be tricky, as she’d only seen it for a mere second. And upside down. And it had mostly been in Latin.
She needed the magic spell she’d read on Mortadella’s phone screen, back at the Witch’s Retreat.
The only other spell words she had ever heard had been Frankie’s, and she already knew that Minimicatus Diabolicum, even when channelled through the Stone, was now too weak to work on the newly invigorated Bellissima. But Mortadella, surely, was the sort of serious-minded Magical Being whose spells would be strong, and accurate, and effective.
Roxy breathed in deeply and tried to visualize what she’d seen on Mortadella’s phone.
Perhaps it was because she was panicking, but she couldn’t see anything. Nothing at all.
She half opened her eyes and saw that Bellissima was moving towards her. Her beautiful lips were curled upwards in an unpleasant smile, and her black eyes glowed with the anticipation of doing something properly horrible.
“Hand it over,” she murmured. “Do it now, and you’ll still walk away. You do not want to mess with me, I promise you. OK?”
Roxy closed her eyes again.
An easy upgrade for the highly skilled witch…
This was it! Even if she wasn’t skilled. At all. Let alone highly. Or a witch.
Incantate hexabore… This sounded promising, but there was a third word and a fourth … what were they…? Roxy screwed up her eyes so tight that she could see spots dancing in front of the words she was trying to make out.
“Do not dare to close your eyes!” screamed Queen Bellissima. “How do you have the gall? Look upon my face, for I’m the fairest of them all!”
… comestibi … Right, now that last word was all Roxy needed. Her hand clutched the Stone, she was pointing the sharp end of the triangle straight at Bellissima…
Then, just as the witch raised her own hands to attack, Roxy remembered it.
“Incantate hexabore comestibi penultarum!” she yelled.
For a split second – a split second that felt to Roxy like a lifetime – nothing happened.
Then a sudden shaft of br
ight white light shot out of the Stone, heading for a startled-looking Bellissima. And Roxy knew, just knew, that the spell was going to work. But she didn’t have time to enjoy this feeling, because the light had caused the Stone some serious kickback. A powerful shock zipped through her hand and all the way up her arm. It was so strong that it flung Roxy backwards, against the wall, where she knocked her head. She just had time to see the light hit Queen Bellissima smack in the chest before the sharp blow to her head sent her into oblivion.
And blackness.
26
TWO DAYS LATER.
“So let’s run through it all again, Roxy. You were in Mrs Kettleman’s doughnut shop – ignoring my direct order not to leave the Ministry grounds, by the way…”
“Again, Gretel, I’m sorry about that.”
“… and while you were there, you saw Bijou Splendid have her head turned into a mango…”
“A pineapple, actually.”
“… and because of that, you met your first-ever … ah … magical person…”
“My first-ever BOBI. Can you please just get your head around the fact I know about this stuff now?”
“… an unlicensed magical person called Francesca the Flotsam Fairy…”
“Yes. Look, G – I know you’re a big deal at the Ministry, so if you could maybe have a word with someone about the whole unlicensed thing? Frankie’s a bit disorganized, but he never intended to break the law.”
“… after which you took it upon yourself to take this Frankie to Bijou’s bedroom so he could apologize…”
This part, obviously, was a bit of a fib, but Roxy was relieved she seemed to have got away with it.
“… whereupon,” Gretel continued, “you encountered the spirit of evil Queen Bellissima in Bijou’s dressing-table mirror, used the Witching Stone you happened to have in your pocket to perform a powerful spell to defend yourself, and in the process turned the evil queen into a giant goji-berry-and-bran muffin.”
Gretel spoke the last sentence very quickly and matter-of-factly, which made it obvious to Roxy that she was determined to gloss over the fact that all this had been achieved with the help of a Witching Stone. Roxy stowed this away for now, ready to use it when her sister was a little more off guard.
Roxy & Jones Page 14