The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3)(60)

“But anyway magic plus computers, not a good combination, so I figured I had to choose one or the other. But then I found horology. Horomancy.”

“Please tell me that word doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means,” Plum said.

“Clock magic. It was the best of both worlds really. I always liked the hardware side, and it’s easier to scrounge parts for clocks than computers—you would not believe what people throw away. Plus you can, uh, steal stuff sometimes too, if you have to. After a while I got some pretty sophisticated apparatus going. Seeing what kind of magic I could get traction on—temporal effects, obviously, but that’s just where you start. You work your way outward. Weather. Optics. Probability. Field effects.

“Mostly I was figuring this stuff out on my own. It has a different feel from all that gobble-gobble stuff you guys do.” He waggled his fingers like he was casting a spell. “This is more slow and steady. Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

Quentin was developing some respect for Stoppard. Genuine loners were rare in the magic world, but this guy was the real thing. A total outlier: self-motivated, self-taught, on the fringes even of the safe-house scene. He was his own one-boy, one-room Brakebills. He wasn’t much to look at, but Quentin never would have gotten anywhere near magic all by himself in Brooklyn.

“Anyway I must not have kept it as quiet as I thought because one morning I woke up and there was a letter on my bed, about the meeting at the bookstore. After that it was a no-brainer. I mean, forget about the cash, the gear that bird got for me—he must have pretty much infinite money. Stuff I only ever read about. Pretty much my wet dream.”

“Pretty much,” Betsy conceded.

She could have made a joke, but somewhere in there she’d lost her bloodlust—Stoppard wasn’t quite the juicy target she was hoping for. Too innocent. Too easy.

“If you’re into watches,” Quentin said, “take a look at this.”

He fished his pocket watch out of his coat on the end of its silver chain and handed it across. Even with his newly discovered skill at mending he hadn’t made any headway with it. Stoppard took it the way a vet would take charge of a wounded sparrow. He regarded it from different angles, held it to his ear. His manner became quick and professional.

“Doesn’t run?”

“Not at the moment,” Quentin said. “Think you could get it going?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

Stoppard put it in his lap and cracked open one of the hard plastic suitcases, which was evidently purpose-built to hold a set of tiny, glittering steel tools. He took out a jeweler’s loupe and selected one pair of tweezers and put another in his mouth, then he opened the back of the watch to look at the works—something Quentin had never been able to do.

A faint pale light filtered out. Stoppard’s face went slack.

“Oh my God,” he whispered. “Oh my God. Where did you get this?”

“It’s come a long way.”

“What is it?” Plum leaned over. “Ooh—so many little wheels.”

“These mechanisms don’t exist. Nobody does this. Look, it’s got a second face.”

He swung back the outer dial to reveal another one underneath it. His expression communicated the fact that he had somewhat underestimated Quentin and that he was, to the extent to which he was capable of it, sorry about that. Then he went back to the watch, ignoring Plum’s attempts to look over his shoulder.

He didn’t say anything for the next hour, until the limo rolled to a stop. Lionel walked around to their door and opened it. Cold air washed in.

“This is it, guys,” he said. “Keep it quiet. No magic till I tell you. We’re still a couple of miles from the house, but we don’t know much about the security.”

“Wait, what?” Plum said. “But this isn’t the real thing?”

“This is it,” he said again, impatiently. He looked even paler and lumpier than usual, and he’d let his beard get even more unruly.

“For Christ’s sake,” Quentin said. “You realize we’re nowhere near ready!”

“Then get ready. We’re out of time. You guys are professionals, right?”

The answer to that was a rousing chorus of silence.

“Look, just do your jobs.”

He disappeared, leaving behind a limo full of shocked silence. Plum turned to Quentin.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Quentin said. “We could walk away.”

Giving up now would be hard. He’d be set back months, and that would hurt. But this was more risk than he’d signed on for.

“Oh come on,” Betsy said. “It’s just a job.”

“That’s my point. No way is this worth getting killed over.”

“Just breaking the bond alone, I’m putting us at about a fifty-fifty shot,” Plum said. “Let’s think about that for a second.”

“Let’s think about this.” Betsy leaned across from the seat opposite. She smiled as if she were confiding a wonderful, intimate secret. “If you leave now? I will hunt you down and kill you. I will never stop till I find you. I’ve given up too much, and I am too close. Do you understand?”

She stared at Quentin, not blinking.