50 Fun Facts About Septimus Heap

In Magyk, by what Young Army name is Septimus Heap known before his true identity is revealed?

Boy 412 is all he is called for the first ten years of his life, after a mix-up in the Young Army nursery. A scrying pond at Aunt Zelda's cottage finally shows who he is.

Septimus Heap's exceptional Magykal power comes from being born as what, like Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker?

Seventh son of a seventh son describes him exactly: his father is the seventh son of Benjamin Heap, and he is the youngest of seven brothers. Even the name Septimus fits.

The New York Post recommended Magyk, the first Septimus Heap book, to fans of which other fantasy series?

Harry Potter comparisons stuck, and not only for the wizards: Jenna, like Ginny Weasley, is the only girl in a large family of brothers that includes twins.

What golden vessel, hidden in a cavern beneath Aunt Zelda's cottage in Magyk, can both sail and fly?

Dragon Boat is half ship and half living creature. She wakes when the children climb aboard, and Jenna finds she can speak with her, as the Queens of the Castle always could.

The last Septimus Heap novel ends with an adapted line about technology from which science fiction author?

Arthur C. Clarke's famous third law ends the series, with its final word respelled in the books' own style. It is a wink that this wizarding world may not be what it seems.

Jenna's pet Petroc Trelawney, which keeps her company in Magyk, is what unusual kind of companion?

A rock is what Petroc Trelawney is: a pet pebble that Jenna loses in a flood in the first book and gets back much later in the series.

Which ExtraOrdinary Wizard interrupts Jenna's tenth birthday in Magyk to reveal that she is the missing Princess?

Marcia Overstrand had saved the baby ten years earlier, on the day the Queen was killed, and saw her placed with the Heaps. She returns because a spy next door has confirmed who the girl is.

Which Necromancer and former ExtraOrdinary Wizard is the main villain of Magyk, the first Septimus Heap book?

DomDaniel rules through a puppet government while he plots to retake the Wizard Tower, and in the sequel even his reassembled bones try to finish the job.

Clues scattered through the Septimus Heap books suggest that its world of wizards and castles is set when?

The far future is the hidden setting: characters swap old legends that match the Apollo Moon missions, and at the very end Septimus writes a date in the snow from the year 12,004.

Which English author, who grew up in the Thames Valley, London and Kent, wrote the Septimus Heap series?

Angie Sage illustrated other people's books before writing her own, and Magyk was her first novel.

What colour are the eyes of Jenna, a trait shared by every Queen and Princess of the Castle in Septimus Heap?

Violet eyes run in the royal line, and Jenna has them from the day she is found as a baby in the snow. Wizards in the books have green eyes instead.

In Magyk, which wild region south of the Castle hides Aunt Zelda's cottage and the fugitive Heaps?

Marram Marshes are based on boggy ground at the end of a creek near the author's home, and most of Magyk unfolds there once the Heaps flee the Castle.

Whose sailboat Muriel, namesake of the author's real one, carries the fugitives out of the Castle in Magyk?

Sally Mullin pays dearly for lending it: pursuers burn down her riverside café with her locked inside, and only a KeepSafe Charm saves her.

Which pursuer of Jenna leaves Aunt Zelda's cottage in Magyk believing he is a buffoon seeking circus work?

The Hunter is halted by Aunt Zelda's spell, then has his memories erased so thoroughly that he wanders off and abandons his own canoe.

Which official runs the Castle after the Queen's assassination in Magyk, doing the Necromancer's bidding?

The Supreme Custodian takes over while the Queen's murder is kept secret for months, yet he answers to a hidden master all along.

Which boy, raised as the Necromancer's Apprentice in Magyk, wrongly believes that he is Septimus Heap?

Merrin Meredith is really the son of the midwife who stole the Heap baby; a nurse picked up the wrong infant, so the two boys grew up in each other's place.

Which murdered ExtraOrdinary Wizard returns as a ghost in Magyk to warn that the Assassin is outside?

Alther Mella still wears his purple cloak, with a bloodstain marking where the bullet struck, and as a ghost he goes on advising his former pupil.

Which object, seized by the Necromancer in Magyk, is the source of the ExtraOrdinary Wizard's power?

Akhu Amulet is handed from each ExtraOrdinary Wizard to the next, and losing it drains its wearer's power. She snatches it back on the deck of a sinking ship.

The ExtraOrdinary Wizard's trademark pointy purple footwear in the Septimus Heap books is made of what?

Python skin is her standing order from shoemaker Terry Tarsal, who hates snakes and suspects she asks for it on purpose.

How do the ExtraOrdinary Wizard and her guests flee her tower rooms when the Assassin arrives in Magyk?

Down the rubbish chute they go, landing in the dump below, where she blocks the pipe behind them so it looks as though the group is stuck inside.

Where does the ExtraOrdinary Wizard end up after a false message lures her back to the Castle in Magyk?

Dungeon Number One nearly kills her; she travels at midnight for Magykal protection, but her timepiece is wrong and guards are waiting.

Which insects does the ExtraOrdinary Wizard conjure, 57 in all, to defend Aunt Zelda's cottage in Magyk?

Shield bugs are her precaution after two weeks in hiding, made once she learns that an old enemy is free to return to the Castle.

Which Message Rat, also known as Rat 101, is drawn into the adventures of the Heap family in Magyk?

Stanley first meets the Heaps while delivering a message for the family, and the adventures cost him his marriage: his wife Dawnie leaves to live with her sister.

Aunt Zelda's cat Bert, in the Septimus Heap books, has been transformed into which animal that is easier to keep?

A duck is simply easier to keep in the waterlogged land around the cottage, so Aunt Zelda changed Bert's shape and kept her cat as a pet all the same.

Which mud-dwelling creature, a friend of Aunt Zelda, escorts Jenna and the fugitives to her cottage in Magyk?

The Boggart lives in a mud patch just off her island and knows the area well, though he would much rather be left alone during the day.

Which vegetable fills the sandwiches Aunt Zelda makes, which fatten up the thin Young Army boy in Magyk?

Cabbage and eel are the staples of Aunt Zelda's cooking, and Septimus Heap is the only other person who appreciates it.

What is the name of the yearly winter event that cuts Aunt Zelda's cottage off from the Castle in Magyk?

The Big Freeze strands Septimus Heap's father on the wrong side after he leaves to look for a missing son, and the Big Thaw that follows lets enemies reach the cottage.

What is the name of the Necromancer's ship, wrecked by his own storm near Bleak Creek in Magyk?

Vengeance holds the captive ExtraOrdinary Wizard until three children sneak aboard to find her, and it ends the book as a sunken wreck.

Which Heap, an Ordinary Wizard, finds the baby Jenna left in the snow at the start of Magyk?

Silas senses her heartbeat through the snow by Magyk, on the very day his own newborn son is carried away and declared dead.

Which Heap brother, the family's keen sailor, steers the fugitives' sailboat away from the Castle in Magyk?

Nicko is the sixth Heap son and prefers sailing to spells, so he later becomes an apprentice at the Castle boatyard.

Which eldest Heap brother turns to Darke Magyk and kidnaps Jenna on his horse Thunder in Flyte?

Simon resents losing the ExtraOrdinary Apprenticeship he wanted to his youngest brother, though he later reforms and marries Lucy Gringe.

Which Young Army friend of Septimus Heap, left for dead in the Forest, reappears at Camp Heap in Flyte?

Wolf Boy survived by living among wolverines until he grew too big, and he later trains with Aunt Zelda to become the first male Keeper.

Sleuth, the enchanted tracker that pursues Jenna in Flyte, was made from which discarded everyday object?

A tennis ball, bald with age, was dug out of a dumpster by Jenna's kidnapper and enchanted into a servant that can track her anywhere.

Septimus Heap's shape-shifting grandfather Benjamin chose to live on as what, instead of becoming a ghost?

A tree is the form Grandpa Benji settled into when he grew old, and his branches later shelter two of his grandsons from wolverines for a night.

Which third Septimus Heap book sends its hero 500 years into the past to study under an alchemist?

Physik takes its name from the craft he learns there, knowledge he brings home to brew a cure for a plague spreading through the Castle.

Which 500-year-old royal ghost, freed from a portrait by Septimus Heap's father, is the third book's villain?

Queen Etheldredda, nicknamed the Awful, had already murdered two of her own daughters and returns hoping to rule the Castle for ever.

Which Manuscriptorium clerk, best friend of Septimus Heap, inspects the Ice Tunnels by sled and loves FizzFroot?

Beetle is the youngest person ever to pass the Manuscriptorium entrance exam, and in a later book he rises to become Chief Hermetic Scribe.

Which young trader in the Septimus Heap books owns Ullr, a cat that becomes a panther at night?

Snorri Snorrelssen is a Spirit Seer, able to see every ghost whether or not it chooses to appear, and she comes to the Castle looking for the ghost of her father.

Who was the first ExtraOrdinary Wizard, builder of the Wizard Tower, in the Septimus Heap series?

Hotep-Ra is no mere legend in the later books: Septimus Heap meets him in person, still attended by his apprentice Talmar Ray Bell.

In the fourth Septimus Heap book, which place where all eras meet is the goal of the deadly Queste?

House of Foryx holds a brother and a friend of Septimus Heap, stranded since an earlier trip into the past, and is also home to the very first ExtraOrdinary Wizard.

In the Septimus Heap series, which seafarer, husband of the murdered Queen, is revealed as Jenna's birth father?

Milo Banda first appears as a dark stranger trailing Jenna, and in a later book his cargo of warrior jinn is stolen and turned against the Castle.

Which Darke object, a prison for trapped wizards, is destroyed in Alchemical fire as the Septimus Heap series ends?

Two-Faced Ring holds a pair of Darke wizards who escape and take over the bodies of two Heap uncles before they are forced back inside.

Which sequel trilogy, opening with PathFinder, follows the Apprentice of a grown-up Septimus Heap?

TodHunter Moon picks up the story seven years after the original series, with Alice TodHunter Moon learning Magyk from Septimus himself.

Which film studio bought the screen rights to Magyk but dropped its planned live-action Septimus Heap movie?

Warner Bros. sat on the project for years before abandoning it, and the rights only returned to the author's side in 2019, with hopes of a television series instead.

The misty landscape of which English county, the author's former home, helped inspire the world of Septimus Heap?

Cornwall is where she lived before starting the series, and the tides in the novels follow those of the Cornish port of Falmouth.

Before turning to illustration and writing Septimus Heap, its author began training in which other field?

Medicine was her first course of study, but she switched to art school in Leicester for graphic design and illustration and began by illustrating books.

Aunt Zelda, the Keeper who shelters the Heaps in Magyk, has the bright blue eyes typical of what?

A White Witch like Aunt Zelda wants Magyk used without disrespecting nature, which is why she so often quarrels with the Castle's most powerful wizard.

Septimus Heap's author writes magical words such as Magyk and Flyte in what deliberately unusual way?

Archaic spellings were her way of steering readers away from thoughts of stage magicians and conjuring tricks, borrowing from an age before spelling was standardised.

What rule limits where ghosts may travel in the Septimus Heap books, hurling back any who break it?

Only places visited in life are open to a ghost; anywhere else an invisible force throws the ghost backwards, which is called being Returned.

Which American artist, also known for Magic: The Gathering cards, illustrated the Septimus Heap novels?

Mark Zug painted for fantasy card games before Septimus Heap, and he illustrated all seven novels, covers and inside pictures alike.