The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3)(103)

“Quentin—”

“Don’t Quentin me.” Now he was the one getting animated. “This is what I’m doing. What I have to do. You’re saving Fillory, I’m doing this.”

“Quentin, look at me.” Eliot sat up. “You’re right. If there was ever a chance this would be it. But there isn’t a chance. That’s not Alice. Alice is already dead. She died seven years ago, and you can’t bring her back.”

“I went to the Underworld. She wasn’t there.”

“You didn’t see her, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. We’ve been over and over this. Quentin, I could really use your help. Fillory needs your help. And I hate to be crass, you know I do, but Alice is one person. We’re talking about Fillory, all of it, the entire land, thousands of people. Plus a lot of cute animals.”

“I know.” They were wasting time, he had to get back upstairs. “I know. But I have to try.”

“What’s your plan there?” Plum said.

“I don’t know. Run around some more, cast some more spells. Maybe I’ll stumble on something. Trial and error.”

Plum tapped her lips with one finger.

“Not my place, but it sounds to me like you’re a little stuck.”

“I am stuck.”

“It sounds to me,” she said, “like you’re dicking around. Sneaking, dodging, avoiding confrontation.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you, I just don’t know what else to do.”

“Against my better judgment,” Plum said, “I’m going to give you the benefit of a woman’s perspective on this one.”

“I am so excited to see where this is going,” Eliot said, “I can’t even tell you. Keep talking.”

“What I mean is, meet her head-on. Stand and fight. Quit sneaking around. See what happens.”

“I tried that. I lost.”

“It sounds to me like you tried hiding behind like ninety shields,” Plum said. “That shit probably just pissed her off even more, and from what I’ve seen she was already plenty pissed. You know what makes people angry? When they’re trying to tell you something, and you’re not hearing them. Then they feel like they have to get louder and louder and louder, and then you’re still not listening. You’re just getting all scared.”

“Because it’s f*cking scary!”

“She wants you to stand and face her, Quentin. What I’m talking about is walking in there and dealing with her. You want her to be a person again? Try treating her like one.”

Quentin shook his head.

“That’s suicide.”

“Is it? It sounds to me like a relationship.”

“You’re being glib,” he said.

“Am I? Why hasn’t she killed you yet?”

A heavy silence fell in the room. The trouble was that she was right. However Alice got here, it wasn’t an accident. He’d tried to make a land, and it hadn’t worked. He’d wanted to create something, make something new, be somebody new, but it was becoming apparent that he couldn’t, not until he’d dealt with something old. Not until he’d cleared his debts and laid his ghosts to rest.

The way he really knew Plum was right was that it was what Alice would have done.

“I still think you should scrub it out,” Eliot said, obviously disappointed. “Fresh beginning. Start over.”

“I have a feeling,” Plum said, “that it’s a little bit late in the day to start over.”

—

Back in the fourth-floor workroom, Quentin opened the red door again. He was starting to hate the sight of his land. It was a stillborn thing: he’d meant to make something fresh and real, and instead he’d produced this cold, sterile photocopy. Something had gone wrong, and more and more he was starting to think that the problem was him.

He sat down at the worktable and stared at his notes, thinking about what Plum had said and waiting for some kind of signal to emerge out of the noise. Should he just walk in, stand there, look her in the eye? Maybe he should.

There she was, right there in the doorframe, watching him as if she knew what he was thinking.

“I’m here,” he said. “Alice. It’s time we talked. It’s time we figured this out.”

She floated there, free-falling in place, staring right through him. Something was missing: if they were going to talk, and if it was going to count, it should be here in the real world, not the copy. He wanted to bring her through, to force her out into the open, onto his ground. It would be a terrible risk. A niffin in lower Manhattan—if he lost control he could be looking at a magical September 11th. But you could talk yourself out of anything.

“Come here.” Could she? “Come out here. Let’s finish this.”

Faint smile, but nothing more. Alice couldn’t or wouldn’t come through on her own. That meant he had to help her.

He began with a series of erasures and banishments and antimagic attacks, each one more powerful and violent than the next, but the land was tougher than it looked. They didn’t scratch it. It wasn’t going that easily, not without a fight.

He changed tacks: he picked up his staff, his lovely black wood and silver staff. It took five tries, whacking it against the brick pillars in the workroom, but he broke it in the middle and then twisted apart the two halves.