Angie Sage - Syren (Septimus Heap, Book 5)

Septimus Heap Book Five Syren Angie Sage Illustrations by Mark Zug For Eunice, There at the beginning, and always Contents A Crossing of Paths Promotion Keepers Cottage Barney Pot Intended 412 and 409 Jim Knee The Pie Shop The Port Witch Coven The Grim Out of the Stew Pot Harborside Into the Fire Dragon Flight The Trading Post The Cerys The Pigeon Post Office The Chest A Performance Storm Miarr Tailspin The Island Buckets Post Wizard Ways Witchy Ways To the Lighthouse Pincer-Splat UnSeen The Red Tube Syrah Syara MindScreen The Pinnacle The Syren The Deeps Chief Cadet The Book of Syrah Syren Projections Nickos Watch Aground The Hold Banana Man Breakout Jinn Turtle and Ants The Silver Snake To the Castle? On Tentacles Returns A CROSSING OF PATHS I t is Nickos first night out of the House of Foryx, and Jenna thinks he is going a little crazy. Some hours previously, on Nickos insistence, Septimus and Spit Fyre took Jenna, Nicko, Snorri, Ullr and Beetle to the Trading Posta long string of harbors on the edge of the land where the House of Foryx lies hidden. Nicko had been desperate to see the sea once more, and no one, not even Marcia, felt able to refuse. Septimus objected a little more than anyone else. He knew his dragon was tired after the long flight from the Castle to the House of Foryx, and they both faced a long journey home with the dangerously ill Ephaniah Grebe. But Nicko was adamant.

He had to go toof all placesa ramshackle net loft on Harbor Number Three, which was one of the smaller harbors on the Trading Post and used mainly by local fishing boats. Nicko told them that the net loft belonged to the bosun on the ship that he and Snorri had sailed on all those years in the past, bound from the Port to the Trading Post. In mid-crossing Nicko had saved the ship from catastrophe by doing an emergency repair of a broken mast, and in gratitude the bosun, a Mr. Higgs, had given Nicko a key to his net loft and insisted that anytime Nicko was in the Trading Post he couldindeed must stay there. When Septimus pointed out that that was five hundred years ago and the offer may not still standlet alone the net loftNicko had told Septimus that of course it still stood, an offer was an offer. All he wanted, Nicko said, was to be near boats once more, to hear the sea again, and to smell the salt in the air.

Septimus argued no further. How could heor any of the othersrefuse Nicko that? And so, with some misgivings, Septimus left them at the end of the dingy alleyway that Nicko insisted contained Mr. Higgss net loft. Septimus and Spit Fyre had returned to a snowy tree house near the House of Foryx where Ephaniah Grebe, Marcia and Sarah Heap waited to take them back to the Castle. However, after Septimuss departure, all had not gone well at the net loft. It stank. It stank.

It was also dark, damp, cold and, apparently, used as the local fish garbage dump, judging by the pile of rotting fish heaped up below the small, unglazed window. There was, as Jenna irritably pointed out, nowhere to sleep because most of the top two floors were missing, allowing a fine view of a large hole in the roof, which the local seagull population was apparently using as a toilet. Even so, Nicko remained undeterred. But when Beetle fell through the rotten floor and was left dangling by his belt over a cellar full of unidentifiable slime, there was a rebellion. Which is why we now find Jenna, Nicko, Snorri, Ullr and Beetle standing outside a seedy caf on Harbor Number Onethe nearest place to eat. They are looking at scrawls on a chalkboard offering three varieties of fish, something called Pot Luck Stew and a steak from an animal that no one has ever heard of.