“We were breaking into their home.”
“Glory has its price,” Penny said. “Did you not know that, before you sought it?”
“Well, I guess they paid the price for us, huh?”
To Quentin’s surprise Eliot rounded on him, too.
“What, you’re going to back out? You?” Eliot laughed a bitter, barking laugh. “You need this almost as badly as I do.”
“I’m not backing out! I’m just saying!”
Quentin had time to wonder why exactly Eliot did need this before Anaïs cut them off.
“Oh, God. Please, can we not?” She shook her curly head in disgust. “Can we all just not?”
Four hours and three flights of stairs and one mile of empty corridor later Quentin was examining a door when it opened suddenly, hard, smacking him in the face. He took a step backward and put a hand to his upper lip. In his half-stunned state he was more preoccupied with whether or not his nose was bleeding than with who or what had just slammed the door into it. He raised the back of his hand to his upper lip, checked it, raised it again, then checked it again. Yep, definitely bleeding.
An elfin being stuck its narrow, angry face around the edge of the door and glared at him. Purely by reflex Quentin kicked it shut.
He’d been about to point out the door to the others, who were busy surveying a wide, low-ceilinged room with a dry basin in the center. A creeping ivy-like plant had grown out of the basin and halfway up the walls and then died. Daylight was a months-ago memory. There were twinkly lights going off behind Quentin’s eyes, and his nose felt like a warm, melting gob of something salty and throbbing. With melodramatic slowness the door creaked open again, gradually revealing a slight, pointy-featured man wearing black leather armor. He didn’t look particularly surprised to see Quen tin. The man, elf, whatever, whipped a rapier out of his belt and snapped into a formal fencing stance. Quentin backed away, gritting his teeth with fear and resignation. Just like that, Fillory had vomited out another one of its malignant menagerie.
Maybe fatigue had dulled the edge of his fear, but almost unbeknownst to himself Quentin was enunciating the words to Penny’s Magic Missile spell. He’d practiced it back in New York, and now he backpedaled as he cast it because the Black Elf—as Quentin tagged him—was advancing on him using a poncey sideways fencing shuffle, his free hand held aloft, wrist limp. Quentin was getting the spell right, he could feel it, and he was loving himself for getting it right. Terror and physical pain sharpened and simplified Quentin’s moral universe. He snapped the magical darts straight into the elf ’s chest.
The Black Elf coughed and sat down hard, looking dismayed. His face was the perfect height for kung-fu kicking, so Quentin, in what felt like an act of consummate bravery, kicked him savagely in the face. The rapier clattered to one side.
“Haaaaaaa!” Quentin shouted. It was like when he’d fought Penny, when the fear had left him. Was this battle rage at last? Was he going to become a berserker like Fen? It felt so good to stop being afraid.
Nobody else in the room had noticed what was going on, not until he yelled. Now the scene tilted and slid into nightmare. Four more Black Elves scrambled through the open door carrying an assortment of weapons, followed by two goat-legged men and two terrifying flying giant bumblebees the size of basketballs. Also present was something fleshy and headless that scrambled along on four legs, and a silent, wispy figure composed of white mist.
With the two teams arranged on their respective sides of the room, a staring match ensued. It all reminded Quentin powerfully of the opening moments of a game of dodgeball. His body seethed. He wanted to cast the missile spell again. He’d gone from feeling frail and vulnerable and cowardly to feeling badass and supercharged and armor-plated. The two merce naries were whispering and pointing, choosing up targets.
Fen picked up a pebble and tossed it lightly, sidearm, at one of the fauns (they had evil fauns now?), who let it bounce off a round leather buckler strapped to his forearm. He looked pissed.
“The grimling’s the problem,” Quentin heard Fen say to Dint.
“Yeah. Leave the pangborn, though, I have something for that.”
Dint withdrew a wand from his cape and appeared to write something in the air with it. He said a couple of words into the tip, like it was a microphone, then he indicated one of the fauns with it, a conductor cuing a soloist. The faun burst into flame.
It was like it was made of magnesium soaked in gasoline and had just been waiting for an errant spark to set it off. No part of it was not on fire. It took a step backward, then turned to the goat-man next to it as if to say something. Then it fell down, and Quentin couldn’t look at it anymore. As all hell broke loose he tried to hang on to the gleeful bloodlust he’d felt so clearly a moment ago, to fan it back into life, but he’d lost it, fumbled it in the confusion.
Fen was thriving. This was evidently what she trained for. Quentin had missed it before, but she was actually mixing in a little magic as she fought—her inc aga was a hybrid technique, a martial art fully integrated with some highly specialized spellcasting style. Her lips moved, and there were white flashes where her fist- and hand-strikes landed. Meanwhile Dint addressed himself to the ghostly, misty figure, saying something inaudible that caused it to struggle and then be dispersed by an invisible, soundless roaring gale.
Quentin took a quick inventory of his brave company. Eliot had made himself useful by casting a kinetic spell on the second satyr, pinning it safely to the ceiling. Anaïs had her short sword out—it had a moonlight shimmer to it now, which meant she’d put a sharpness charm on it—and was looking eagerly around for somebody to stick it into. Janet was hugging herself against the back wall, her face wet and shining with tears. Her eyes were blank. She was gone.
Too many things were happening at once. Quentin’s stomach clenched when he realized an elf had singled Alice out and was advancing across the dry basin toward her, twirling a long straight knife—were they called poniards?—in each hand. It was obvious from Alice’s face that every spell she’d ever learned had just now slipped her mind. She turned away, dropped to one knee, and locked her hands behind her head. Nobody in the history of all the conflicts in the world had ever looked more defenseless.
He only had time to feel all the tenderness he had ever felt for her surge up in one infinitely concentrated instant—and to be surprised that it was all still there, moist and intact beneath the unsightly scorched layer of his anger—before the back of Alice’s blouse tore wide open and a small leathery biped clawed its way vigorously out of the skin of her back. It was a party trick, a showgirl bursting out of a cake. Alice had loosed her cacodemon.
No question, the cacodemon was instantly the happiest being in the room. This was exactly the party it wanted to be at. Facing the elf, it bounced on its toes like a wiry little tennis pro preparing for return of service, with triple match point on its side. Its leap was evidently several beats faster than its opponent had counted on. In a moment it was past the poniards and had fastened its wiry grip on the elf ’s upper arms and buried its horrible face in the soft hollow of the elf ’s throat. The elf gagged and sawed futilely at the demon’s shark-skinned back with its knives. Quentin reminded himself for at least the hundredth time never to underestimate Alice again.
And just like that it was over. They were out of opponents. The elves and the bees were down. The room was full of acid smoke from the burned satyr. Fen owned most of the body count; she was already running through a post-combat warm-down ritual, stepping backward through the forms she’d executed in the brief battle and whispering their names to herself. Penny was carefully casting a sleep spell on the satyr that Eliot had stuck to the ceiling, while Anaïs watched, impatient to administer the coup de grace. Quentin noted, with the pettiest possible annoyance, that they had the satyr without the buckler, which meant that Dint had burned the satyr with the buckler, which meant that he couldn’t loot the buckler for himself. He had a crusty dried mustache from his b
loody nose.
That wasn’t so bad, he told himself. This wasn’t such a nightmare. He risked a shuddering sigh of relief. Was that really it? Had they gotten everything?
Janet had finally thawed from her frozen state and was busy with something. Unlike everything else they’d seen, the fleshy, headless four-legged creature was neither humanoid nor obviously related to any terrestrial fauna. It was radially symmetrical, like a starfish, with no obvious front or back or face. It stood unreadable in a dark corner, taking sudden scary little hops in unexpected directions. It had a large faceted gem embedded in its back. Decoration? Or was that its eye? Its brain?
“Hey.” Fen snapped her fingers in Janet’s direction. “Hey!” Evidently she’d forgotten Janet’s name. “Leave that. Leave the grimling to us.”
Janet ignored her. She continued to take wary steps toward it. Quentin wished she wouldn’t. She was in no kind of emotional state to be working magic.
“Janet!” he shouted.
“Shit,” Dint said distinctly.
It was a businesslike “shit”—another damn mess for him to clean up. He brought his wand back out from wherever he’d stashed it.
But before he could act Janet reached carefully behind her back and brought out something small but heavy. Gripping it with both hands, she made a small adjustment and then fired five shots into the creature at close range. The pistol bounced upward with each shot, and each time she carefully re-aimed it. The sound was shattering in the low-ceilinged chamber. One shot struck sparks off the jewel in the grimling’s back. It sank to the floor, shivering and deflating like a parade balloon, still expressionless. It made a high urgent whistling sound. By the fifth shot it was visibly dead.
Nothing and nobody in the room moved. Janet turned around. The tears she had shed earlier were already dry.
She glared at them.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” she said.
It got colder the deeper they went. At six stories underground Quentin was shivering in his heavy sweater and thinking nostalgically about the warm puffy parkas they’d abandoned way back by the sunny little stream. They broke for a rest in a circular room with a beautiful lapis lazuli spiral inlaid in the floor. Dark green ambient light emanated from somewhere, like the light in an aquarium. Dint sat in the lotus position, wrapped his cape around him, and meditated. A gap of about six inches separated him from the floor. Fen did calisthenics. The break was clearly not for their benefit; they were like professional mountaineers impatiently shepherding a herd of rich fat cats up the slopes of Mount Everest. The Brakebills party was a package they were contractually obligated to deliver.
Alice sat by herself on a stone bench, her back against a pillar, looking blankly at a mosaic on the wall depicting a sea monster, a creature like an octopus but much larger and with many more than eight legs. Quentin straddled the bench at the other end, facing her. Her eyes flicked over to his for a long moment. There was not a hint of either contrition or forgiveness in them. He made sure his eyes looked the same.
They watched the mosaic. The little squares that made up the sea creature were moving very slowly, rearranging themselves on the wall. The crude blue waves rolled along very gradually. It was easy decorative magic. There was a bathroom floor at Brakebills that had much the same effect. Alice felt like a black hole that was trying to pull him in, rip the flesh clean off him with its sheer toxic gravity.
Finally she took out her canteen and used it to wet a spare white sock.
“Let’s do something about your nose,” she said.
She reached out to dab at his face, but at the last minute he realized he didn’t want her to touch him. He took the sock himself, carefully. It turned pink as he wiped at his upper lip.
“So what was it like,” Quentin said. “When you let the demon out.”
Now that the high of combat was gone, and she was no longer in danger, his anger came creeping back. The anesthetic was wearing off. It was an effort not to say anything vicious. She hiked her foot up onto the bench and started undoing the laces on her sneakers.
“It felt good,” she said carefully. “I thought it would hurt, but it was kind of a relief. Like sneezing. I never felt like I could really breathe with that thing inside me.”
“Interesting. Did it feel as good as fucking Penny?”
He’d actually thought he was going to be civil, but it was too hard. The words came out of his mouth of their own malevolent volition. He wondered what else he would say. I’ve got all kinds of demons inside of me, he thought. Not just the one.
If he’d managed to hurt Alice, she didn’t let it show. She carefully peeled off a sock. A nasty white blister covered the entire ball of her foot. They watched the mosaic some more. A little boat had floated into the scene, a lifeboat maybe, or a launch from a whaler. It was crowded with tiny people. It looked pretty much like a done deal that the sea creature was going to crush the little boat in its many long green arms.
“That was—” She stopped and started over. “That wasn’t good.”
“So why did you do it.”
Alice tilted her head, thoughtfully, but her face was white.
“To get back at you. Because I was feeling like shit about myself. Because I didn’t think you would care. Because I was drunk, and he came on pretty strong—”
“So he raped you.”
“No, Quentin, he did not—”
“Never mind. Stop talking.”
“I don’t think I understood how much it would hurt you—”
“Just stop talking, I can’t talk to you anymore, I can’t hear anything you’re saying!”
He’d started that little speech speaking normally and he ended it shouting. In a way fighting like this was just like using magic. You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse. Quentin leaned forward, all the way forward, until he had placed his forehead on the cool marble of the bench in front of him. His eyes were closed. He wondered what time it was. His head felt a little spinny. He could fall asleep right there, he thought. Just like this. He wanted to tell Alice he didn’t love her, but he couldn’t, because it wasn’t true. It was the one lie he couldn’t quite tell.
“I wish this were over,” Alice quietly.
“What.”
“This mission, this adventure, whatever you want to call it. I want to go home.”
“I don’t.”
“This is bad, Quentin. Somebody’s going to get hurt.”
“Good, I hope they do. If I die doing this, at least I’ll have done something. Maybe you’ll do something one of these days instead of being such a pathetic little mouse all the time.”
She said something he didn’t catch.
“What?”
“I said, don’t talk to me about death. You don’t know anything about it.”
For no reason, and against his express conscious wishes, some very tight elastic band of muscle around Quentin’s chest relaxed very slightly. Something between a laugh and a cough escaped him.
He sank back against his pillar.
“God, I am literally losing my fucking mind.”
Across the room Anaïs sat with Dint, talking intently and going over a handmade map of their progress so far that he’d sketched on what looked suspiciously like graph paper. Anaïs seemed more like a part of the guides’ gang than the Brakebills gang now. As he watched she bent over the map, deliberately smooshing her tit into Dint’s shoulder as she did so. Josh was nowhere to be seen. Penny and Eliot were dozing on the floor in the center of the room, their heads resting on their packs. Eliot had hectored Janet about the gun until he extracted a promise from her to dispose of it responsibly.
“Do you even want this anymore, Quentin?” Alice asked. “I mean, what we’re doing here? This kings and queens idea?”
“Of course I do.” He’d almost forgotten why they were here. But it was tru
e. A throne was exactly what he needed right now. Once they were ensconced in Castle Whitespire, wreathed in glory and every possible physical comfort, then maybe he could find the strength to come to grips with all this. “You’d have to be an idiot not to.”
“You know the funny thing though?” She sat up straight, suddenly animated. “I mean the really hilarious thing? You actually don’t. You don’t even want it. Even if this whole thing came off without a hitch, you wouldn’t be happy. You gave up on Brooklyn and on Brakebills, and I fully expect you to give up on Fillory when the time comes. It makes things very simple for you, doesn’t it? Well, and of course you were always going to give up on us.
“We had problems, but we could have fixed them. But that was too easy for you. It might actually have worked, and then where would you be? You would have been stuck with me forever.”
“Problems? We had problems?” People looked up. He dropped his voice to a furious whisper. “You fucked fucking Penny! I’d say that’s a fucking problem!”
Alice ignored this. If he didn’t know better, he would have said that the tone of her voice almost resembled tenderness.
“I will stop being a mouse, Quentin. I will take some chances. If you will, for just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there’s nothing else. It’s here, and you’d better decide to enjoy it or you’re going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.”
“You can’t just decide to be happy.”
“No, you can’t. But you can sure as hell decide to be miserable. Is that what you want? Do you want to be the asshole who went to Fillory and was miserable there? Even in Fillory? Because that’s who you are right now.”
There was something true about what Alice was saying. But he couldn’t grasp it. It was too complex, or too simple. Too something. He thought of that first week he’d spent at Brakebills, when he and Eliot had gone sculling, and they’d watched the other rowers hunching and shivering in what to Quentin was a warm summer day. That was what he looked like to Alice. It was strange: he’d thought that doing magic was the hardest thing he would ever do, but the rest of it was so much harder. It turned out that magic was the easy part.