The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3)(124)

“To Fillory.” It hadn’t even crossed his mind. “But you know I can’t go back. I can’t leave Alice now, and Ember would never let me in anyway.”

“I’ve been thinking about that second part. I told you how the Lorians invaded us, even though they aren’t supposed to be able to? And then Alice found a way to get here through the mirrors . . . I’m starting to think that Fillory is getting a bit porous in her old age. Border security isn’t what it used to be. If there was ever a moment to get you through, it’s now.”

There was a time when Quentin would have seized on that possibility like a drowning man. Now it gave him a pang, the dull ache of an old wound, but that was all. That time had passed. He shook his head.

“I can’t, Eliot. Not now. I’m needed here.”

Alice snorted at the notion that anybody anywhere might need Quentin.

“I was afraid of that,” Eliot said. “Well look, just come with me as far as the Neitherlands. That’s all I ask. For all I know there’s a smoking crater where the Fillory fountain was. I don’t want to face that alone.”

“Ooooh,” Plum said. Her eyes went round. “I want to go to the Eitherlands!”

“Neitherlands,” Eliot said, suddenly peevish. “And it’s not a field trip for interns.”

They were interrupted by something scratching at the front door. The room fell silent. They weren’t expecting visitors. Nobody knew they were here, or nobody should have. Quentin put a finger to his lips.

More scratching. It stopped and then started again. He got up and walked as quietly as he could over to the door and peered through the spy hole. Empty street. There was nobody there. He looked at the others. Eliot shrugged.

He cracked the door a few inches, keeping the chain on, and something small and frantic burst in past him, and he reeled back a step. It was the blackbird.

It flapped crazily around the room for thirty long seconds, with that special horror that birds have of being indoors, before it settled on the Sputnik chandelier. Even then its gaze darted everywhere, constantly, like it was expecting danger from any and all directions. It looked different: thinner and more bedraggled. It was missing some feathers, and the ones it still had had lost their gloss.

“Do not kill me!” it said.

Plum and Eliot were on their feet. Only Alice hadn’t moved.

“What are you doing here?” Quentin said. “Are you alone?”

“I am alone!”

“Why should we believe you?” Plum said. “You f*cking *. You betrayed us. And you probably murdered Pushkar. He had a family, you know. Quentin, should we kill it?”

“Maybe. Not yet.” If this was a trap, or a feint, or a diversion, it was a weird one, if only because he figured the bird for a physical coward. It wasn’t like it to lead from the front. “Plum, watch it. I’m going to look around for anybody else.”

But there was no one else, not in front or in back or on the roof or in any immediately adjacent planes of existence, not that he could detect. Maybe it really was alone.

“I take it this is that bird,” Eliot said. “The one who hired you.”

“It’s that bird. What are you doing here?”

“I have no more money,” it said. “I tried to hire more magicians, but without Lionel it went poorly.”

“No money, no magicians,” Quentin said. “Those are the breaks. I think you should leave now.”

“I did not want Lionel to kill Pushkar! I did not tell him to. I don’t know why he did. I was afraid of him!”

It already seemed incredible that they’d been so scared of the blackbird. It wasn’t very frightening now. It must have run through all its resources staging their job, and without Lionel and its hired hands it was just a talking bird, nothing more.

It didn’t appear to want to leave.

“You have to help me.”

“No,” Plum said, looking up at it. “We really don’t.”

“The birds here despise me. I am very hungry. I have eaten garbage.”

“I don’t care what you’ve eaten,” Quentin said. “We’ve got more important things to worry about. Leave or we’ll throw you out.”

Though he wasn’t exactly sure yet how they were going to catch and expel the thing. He wasn’t looking forward to that chase scene.

“Please,” it said again. “He will kill me!”

“Who?”

The blackbird didn’t answer, just stared around the room anxiously, from one to the other of them. It didn’t want to say. Quentin didn’t feel the slightest bit sorry for it.

“It’s talking about Ember.”

Even the bird jumped, as if it hadn’t realized Alice could talk. Her expression didn’t change. She wanted everybody to know that her emotional investment in this drama was nil.

“What did you say?”

“That’s Ember’s bird. I met it in the mirrors. It begged me not to kill it. I can’t think why I didn’t. I’m going to bed.”

On her way out she nearly walked into a wall out of habit—as a niffin she would have gone right through it. She left an uncomfortable silence behind her. From behind the drawn curtains they heard a truck come rattling slowly down the narrow street. Quentin waited for it to pass by.