The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3)(125)

“Is that true? Ember sent you?”

“Please.” It had lost all of its avian loftiness now. It trembled. “He will kill me.”

“He won’t,” Plum said, “because we’ll kill you first.”

“He sent me to get the suitcase. I do not know why. He would have sent a bigger animal,” it added almost apologetically, “but He needed one capable of flight. To go through the mirrors. He gave me some money, and the spell to make Lionel once I got here.”

“Why did He want the case? Was it the knife, or the book? Or both?”

“I don’t know!” the blackbird wailed. “I don’t know! I didn’t know what was in it! Truly!”

And it began to cry. Quentin thought he had never heard a more pathetic sound. The bird fluttered down from its perch on the chandelier like a pheasant creased by a bullet. It landed on the coffee table and squatted there, sobbing.

Something coherent was forming in Quentin’s exhausted brain, like a crystal forming in a murky liquid. He’d been looking at chaos for so long, he barely remembered what a pattern looked like, but now he thought he saw at least a fragment of one.

“Hang on,” he said slowly. “Let’s think this through. Rupert stole the stuff in the case, Ember wants it back. He sends a bird to Earth to recover it for Him. The bird hires us to find it.”

Plum picked up the thread. “The stuff in the case was Umber’s, not Ember’s, according to Rupert, but I guess they’re brothers so it’s all in the family. But so why would Ember want it?”

“Why wouldn’t he? Cool knife? Spell for making a magic land? Who wouldn’t want that?”

“A god?” Eliot said. “Who already has a whole magic world?”

“Except He doesn’t.” All the lights came on in Quentin’s head at once. “He doesn’t though. Fillory is dying, and Ember has nowhere to go. He wants the spell so he can use it to make a new world! He’s going to give up on Fillory—abandon it and start over!”

It came out in a rush, which was followed by a pause. Plum made a skeptical face.

“But it fits!” Quentin said. “He’s not even trying to save Fillory! He’s a rat who won’t go down with his ship!”

“That,” Eliot said, “is a mixed metaphor. And listen to me: I know you’ve got no reason to love Ember, but that seems a little cowardly.”

“Yes, because He’s a coward!”

“Plus you know the spell doesn’t make a whole world, right?” Plum said. “Just like a land?”

“Maybe that’s just us. Maybe a god could do more with it.”

She looked up at the ceiling, considering. The blackbird watched all three of them desperately.

“Even if that’s true,” Eliot said, “what would we do about it? It’s kind of depressing me actually. Just more proof that there’s no way out of this.”

Quentin sat down. Maybe he was getting ahead of himself.

“We still have the spell,” he said.

“Destroy it,” Eliot said.

“No.” He couldn’t do that.

“We have the bird,” Eliot said. “We could turn the tables. Take it hostage.”

“Oh, come on. Ember doesn’t give a crap about the bird, the bird’s expendable.” The bird didn’t object to this; it would’ve been hard to argue with. “We should go to Fillory, confront Him, make Him stay there and try and save it. He is the god of it. And we’ve got the spell. God, what a bastard!”

“Or,” Eliot said, cautiously, “maybe we want to get in on this shit. Maybe he’s got the right idea. Maybe we should give Him the spell and tell Him to make a new world and take us with Him.”

“Eliot,” Quentin said.

“I know, I know. It would be a lot easier though.” Eliot heaved himself wearily to his feet. “Fine. Come on, let’s go yell at a god. If nothing else I want to hear Him admit it. I want Him to say it to my face.”

“I’m coming.” Plum got up too.

“Somebody should stay here with Alice,” Quentin said.

“Somebody young and inexperienced in the field,” Eliot said.

“No.” Plum glared at him, uncowed. “No way. I’m not babysitting the Blue Meanie.”

“Maybe Alice will come with us. Maybe she can help. Alice!” Quentin shouted up the stairs. No answer. “I’ll go talk to her.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Give me an hour.”

“I can help!” the bird said.

Quentin’s reflexes were good, but it still only worked because he had the element of surprise. He darted his hand out and caught the bird around the neck. Ignoring its hysterical thrashing, he walked over to a window, opened it, and threw the blackbird out.

—

Alice lay on her back on the bed with her eyes open. She heard the sounds of the house below her—walking, talking, shouting, slamming—but they were very far away. She stared at the ceiling. She felt like a marble figure carved on a tomb, her own tomb. This body was her coffin. She breathed shallowly; even that was an imposition she could barely tolerate.

She would not indulge this body. She didn’t owe it anything. She wanted to feel it as little as possible.