The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3)(123)

An almost infrasonic bass rumble had been building for a while, down beneath the general din, and now it rose into the realm of the audible, and they could feel it too. The fighters on the battlefield lost some of their interest in fighting and looked around for the source. Then it became really obvious, because the ground in front of the castle began to hump up and anybody who was caught out in the open on the hump began to run full out, and just in time too.

The ground at the top of the hump broke open, and a spray of something weird and alien erupted out of it. Roots, Janet realized—it was a spreading crown of enormous pale roots, cracking and writhing, and at the center of it stood Julia, eight feet tall and beautiful and glowing with her own magnificent radiance.

“Look,” Janet said. “It’s the Lorax.”

A foolhardy panther sprang at her, and Julia smote it—there was no other word for it—out of the air with her staff one-handed and sent it spinning off and up into the darkness.

“Enough,” she said.

Her voice must have been audible across the entire dying land. She was the brightest thing in Fillory at that moment.

“It is time.”

That word time echoed from coast to coast. Everyone on the battlefield, beasts and humans and whatever else, stood still. Julia commanded bipartisan support.

She walked toward Janet and Poppy; as she walked one of the roots extended and flattened itself and made a bridge to the parapet where they stood. Another root scooped up Josh from where he’d been sitting, exhausted, on the ground in front of the gates, and set him down next to them.

“Insert joke here,” Julia said, in something like her normal, nonamplified, predivine voice, “about how I leave you alone for five minutes and all of Fillory goes to shit.”

Janet didn’t know what to say. She had nothing left. She embraced Julia. It was a bit awkward, what with her being so huge and all, Janet more or less had to throw her arms around Julia’s waist, but it felt wonderful. Her robes were the softest thing ever. Janet thought it might be beneath Julia’s dignity, to be hugged by a mortal, but she allowed it.

“Queens of Fillory,” Julia said. “And king of Fillory. This is it. It is time to go.”

“Where are we going?” It was Josh who asked, in the voice of a lost child. “Can you take us to the Far Side of the World?”

Julia shook her head, no.

“The Far Side is ending too. We are cooling the sun and stilling the waters. We are rolling up the meadows and pulling down the stars.”

“Then where are we going?” he asked again.

“I don’t know,” Julia said. “But you can’t stay here.”

She held out her hands to them. Janet got it; they had to be touching each other for the enchantment to work. Poppy took Janet’s hand on one side, and Julia—her fingers felt big and tingly—took the other.

Janet bent her head and let herself cry. Her face streamed with tears. It wasn’t going to kill her, she thought. She would live. Of course she would, she didn’t have a scratch on her, for Christ’s sake. Everything was going to be fine. It was just that she would never have a home again.





CHAPTER 27


I’m sorry,” Quentin said, when Alice had finished.

“No, you’re not. So don’t keep saying it.”

“I’m not sorry I brought you back. I’m sorry it all happened. I wish it hadn’t been you. But no one else had the courage and the selflessness and the cleverness to do what you did.”

“Fuck your courage and whatever else. I’m glad I did it. I’m just sorry you ruined it.”

Alice continued to regard him with a contempt as inhuman as a human being could make it.

“It’s hard to come back. I get that. I didn’t understand how hard it would be.” Quentin soldiered on under withering fire. “It’s hard to be human, but there’s more to it than that. You knew that before. You don’t remember it yet, but it’ll come back to you.”

Quentin didn’t know if it would or not, but he wasn’t about to give ground now. He sensed that if he even flinched, she would take that as proof that she was right about everything. And she wasn’t right—was she?

Eliot cleared his throat tactfully.

“There’s no very good time to say this,” he said, “but I have to leave.” He clapped his hands on his knees. “The end of the world is coming, and I should really be there for that.”

“Sure,” Quentin said. “OK.”

“Probably I should try to stop it. Probably I shouldn’t have stayed this long.”

“I know. You should go.”

He was being uncharacteristically hesitant. Quentin made him promise to come back as soon as he could, and to give his love to Josh and Poppy, and oh my God they’re married? You didn’t tell me that? Amazing. And pregnant? Good for them. OK, now really get out of here.

“I’ll just get my things.”

“I understand.”

“Actually I haven’t got any things.”

Having gone through the formalities, Eliot still couldn’t bring himself to leave. He of all people was struggling to find the words to say something. He cleared his throat again.

“Will you come with me?” He blurted it out. “If anybody can figure this out, it’s you. Or Julia, but Julia isn’t taking my calls. We need you, Quentin. Come back.”