The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3)(102)

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” he said.





CHAPTER 23


Quentin hugged him so hard that Eliot spilled his whiskey down his front, which he complained about loudly, but Quentin didn’t care. He had to make sure Eliot was real and solid. It made no sense that he was here, but thank God he was. Quentin had had enough of sadness and horror and futility for one day. He needed a friend, somebody who knew him from the old days.

And seeing Eliot here, out of the blue, for no reason whatsoever, felt like proof that impossible things were still possible. He needed that too.

“It’s good to see you,” he said.

“You too.”

“You met Plum?”

“Yes, charming girl. I assume you’re—?”

“No,” Quentin said.

“Not even—?”

“No!”

Eliot shook his head sadly.

“I can see I came not a minute too soon.”

They stayed up late filling each other in on everything that had happened, then they slept late and drank too much coffee and went over it all again. Eliot’s news brought Quentin up short and sharp: whether or not he was in it, whether or not he could see it or touch it, he’d thought there would always be a Fillory out there somewhere. He loved knowing it was there. It anchored his sense of happiness, the way a distant stockpile of gold might underwrite the value of a paper bill. It was inconceivably sad to think of it ending. And where would they all go—all the people and animals and everything else? What would happen to them?

“But you think there might be something here that could save it?” he said. “Something Rupert had?”

Eliot paced around the living room in circles. Plum and Quentin sat on separate couches watching him. While they slept he’d been up even later, going through Rupert’s notebook. He’d been excited at first when he realized that his search had converged with theirs—he’d come to Earth on a quest, and his best friend had already done it for him! But he’d gone back to being frustrated.

“Maybe it was the knife. But what would I do with it? Who would I stab with it? I never know who to stab. But I don’t know what to do with the spell either.”

“It’s not for reviving a dead land,” Quentin said. “It’s for making somewhere new.”

“There must be something else in that manuscript then, a clue or something. And why would the bird want it?”

As urgent as this was, Quentin’s mind was still with Alice upstairs. Part of him wanted to snap into hero mode, to leap to Fillory’s defense, but saving Fillory was Eliot’s business now. It was hard to admit it, but it was true. He would do what he could, but right now his job was Alice.

“But so Martin made his deal with Umber?” Eliot said finally. “I thought Umber was good. And then didn’t Martin kill Umber?”

“He still could have,” Quentin said. “The classic double cross.”

“Or, maybe Umber’s still alive somewhere. Maybe we’re just supposed to think He’s dead.”

“Ooh, I like that one,” Plum said. “How do you even know Martin killed Umber? God, I still can’t believe I’m talking about Them like They’re real people. Or animals or gods or whatever.”

“Ember told Jane Chatwin,” Quentin said. “Jane told me. But you’re right, maybe this is all Umber’s fault. Maybe He’s the hidden hand or hoof or whatever behind the apocalypse.”

“But why?” Eliot rubbed his face with both hands. “Why would He do that? How can He be alive? Where’s He been all this time? How can He be evil? What, is He Ember’s evil twin? It’s a bit of a cliché, even for Fillory.”

Buckets of sunlight were pouring overenthusiastically in through the bay windows. It was claustrophobic in the house—Quentin hadn’t been outside for days. As tired as he’d been he hadn’t slept well the night before. It was hard knowing that Alice was right there, burning, always burning, with just a thin slip of world between them. He wondered if Alice ever slept. He didn’t think she did.

“And Castle Blackspire?” Eliot was getting more and more animated. “What’s that? It screws up the entire structure! Where does it end? Umber’s got to be the key, one way or the other. Got to. That must be the clue Jane wanted us to find.” Coming to the end of his caffeine fit, he dropped bonelessly into a vinyl armchair. “I’m going to send a message to Janet. She should know about this.”

“You can do that? Send a message to Fillory?”

“It’s not easy. Kind of like a very expensive telegram. But yeah, RHIP. Let’s talk about something else. What’ve you learned about your dead girlfriend?”

“She’s not dead,” Quentin said.

“Bzzt!” Eliot pressed an imaginary game-show button on the arm of the chair. “The answer I was looking for was, ‘She’s not my girlfriend, she’s a crazy magic rage-demon.’ Maybe you should just take the land apart. Scrub it out. Cut your losses.”

“What, with Alice inside?”

“Well, she’ll survive, probably. You can’t kill those things. She’ll just go back where she came from.”

“But she’s still alive, Eliot, and she’s right there. Right there! If there was ever, ever going to be a chance to change her back, this is it.”