J enna was making her way back to the Palace. The squall that had caught Marcia and Septimus in Wizard Way had ambushed her, too. The driving rain stung her eyes and the wind sent her cloak flapping around her ankles as if it were trying to trip her up. Jenna put her head down and ran, one hand holding on to Ullr and her cloak, the other tightly clasping Nicko's notes and Snorri's precious map. She headed straight past the Palace Gates and ran for the relative shelter of the alleyway at the side of the Palace, which would take her to the kitchen garden. As she scooted into the alley she was going fast - so fast that even if she had been looking she would not have had time to stop - when a dark, lanky figure dashed around the corner and hurtled toward her.
The collision with Merrin sent Jenna flying backward; she hit the wall with a thud that knocked the breath out of both her and Ullr. Merrin went sprawling to the ground but, like a gangly spider, he scrambled back onto his feet. He glared angrily at Jenna and raced off, determined not to be late.
Dazed, Jenna allowed Ullr to untangle himself from her cloak. She stood up and rubbed the back of her head, where a large bump was already beginning to form. For a moment she felt confused and, as she glanced down, she wondered about the strange brown confetti floating in the puddles at her feet.
And then she knew.
Feeling suddenly sick, Jenna kneeled down and stared in disbelief. All Nicko's notes - and worse, Snorri's map - had been crushed in the collision and were now in hundreds of wet pieces on the ground. Their last chance of finding Nicko was gone.
Beetle was wandering slowly across the front of the Palace, oblivious to the rain, which was soaking through his woolen jacket and finding its way into his boots. The excitement of the last bizarre hour he had spent with Septimus and Jenna had evaporated in the downpour, and Beetle had begun worrying about what awaited him at the Manuscriptorium. He wondered if Marcia had already paid a visit to inform Jillie Djinn that he had been in the company of the Alchemist. Beetle was also worrying about how to get his sled back. Unlike the Wizard Tower sled, it did not respond to a whistle. It didn't even have a whistle. Even worse, the sled was prone to wandering off and Beetle could not remember if he had tied it up or not. He had been so keen to see Jenna that he had completely forgotten about his job. How was he going to explain that? Beetle felt very annoyed with himself and swore that he would never, ever again let the thought of Jenna get in the way of his work - and then he caught sight of her down the Palace alleyway kneeling in a puddle.
"Princess Jenna?" Beetle's concerned voice intruded on Jenna's despair. "Are - are you all right?"
Jenna shook her head. She did not look up.
Feeling as though he was doing something he shouldn't, something that only someone who knew her well would do, Beetle kneeled down beside her. "Can I help?" he asked.
Jenna looked at him. Beetle was not sure whether it was raindrops or tears running down her face. He had a feeling it might be both. Jenna pointed at the flurry of paper floating in the puddle and said angrily, "I've messed up. It's all my fault. We'll never find them now."
Beetle had a terrible feeling that he knew what the bits of paper were. "Oh no," he murmured. "That's not..."
Jenna nodded miserably.
Tentatively, Beetle picked up a soggy fragment and laid it on the palm of his hand. "Maybe..." he said slowly, thinking very hard.
"What?"
"Maybe if we collected it all we could do something."
"Really?" A small note of hope crept into Jenna's voice.
"I - I don't want to promise too much, but the Manuscriptorium is good at this kind of stuff. It's worth a try." From his pocket, Beetle took a small packet and unfolded it until he had a large square of fine silk balanced on his knee. He licked his finger and thumb and rubbed the edges of the silk so that they parted. The silk square revealed itself to be a pouch with many compartments. "I always carry one of these," said Beetle. "You never know when you might find something you want to put in it."
"Gosh," said Jenna, who never seemed to carry anything useful with her.
With the rain still falling - and to the accompaniment of miserable mewing from a sodden orange cat - Beetle and Jenna spent the next ten minutes meticulously picking up the delicate scraps of five-hundred-year-old paper and laying them in Beetle's silk pouch. When they had satisfied themselves that they had found every last piece, Beetle carefully rolled up the silk and said, "Would you like to carry it under your cloak, Princess Jenna? I think it will keep drier there."
"I'm just Jenna, Beetle. Please." Jenna smiled and tucked the roll of silk inside her cloak.
"Um. Shall I...?" Beetle pointed to the shivering Ullr, faithfully waiting beside the puddle.