The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3)(87)

—

I wouldn’t even have written this much had it not been for the events that have overtaken Britain and the world in the past three years. They have driven me to extremes of desperation I would never have thought possible. There is no telling now who will triumph in the present conflict, and there is every chance that the Germans will overrun England itself before it is all over.

Perhaps help will come. Perhaps Martin is able to perceive events in this world, from wherever he is, and he will come back; if he doesn’t care to I would think that at least Jane would. If they are unable to intervene in the affairs of this world, perhaps Ember or Umber could. That would be a welcome sight: my long-lost brother and sister and the two Great Rams of Fillory, aflame with power, marching abreast on Berlin to chivvy Hitler out of his bunker like a stoat.

But they haven’t come. And I am beginning to think that they are not going to come.

And that is why I am writing these words. This book is a memoir, a secret history, but it is also an act of calculated provocation. I am at present with the 7th Armoured Division in Tobruk, in Libya, preparing for a battle tomorrow with Rommel and his Panzers. I, Rupert Chatwin, a king of Fillory, who rode a griffin against the armies of the Whispering King, who beat the Wight of the West in single combat and broke his back, will fight the Germans in an obsolete Crusader tank full of lice and the stink of me and my comrades-in-arms, that has already leaked oil across half of northern Africa.

If I survive I will send this home with instructions that it be published six months from now unless word arrives from me. The news that Fillory is real will be splashed across every paper in Britain—unless you agree to take me and my family back. Yes, I address you directly: Ember and Umber, Martin and Jane. If not me then save my wife and my child, your only nephew, that is all I ask. Surely it is within your power. Surely you can find it in your hearts.

But if that is still not enough, then I offer you goods in trade. I was not completely honest before: when I left Castle Blackspire that day I did not leave empty-handed. Blackspire is Whitespire’s twin, and I knew where the treasure room was, and I knew how to open it. Even in my fear and grief, I was still selfish enough and spiteful enough to plunder it for whatever I could carry. I wasn’t an adept like Martin, but even I could recognize power when I saw it. I took a blade, and a spell, and I believe they are very powerful indeed. They are of the old workings. The very strongest stuff.

You can come and try to take them from me, but I think you will not. Here: I offer them to you freely if you will do this thing.

For the love of God, Ember and Umber, Martin and Jane, or for the love of whatever it is that you hold sacred, if you are reading these words, take us back to Fillory. For all the ways I have betrayed you I beg your forgiveness. I will atone for my sins any way you like, if you will open the door again, one last time, for me and my family. I was once a king of Fillory, but I will return as your lowliest servant if you will only open the door. I am begging you now. When I turn this page I want you to open the door.

—

The book ended there.

Plum let it lie open on her lap. It felt like it weighed approximately one thousand pounds. She couldn’t look at Quentin. She didn’t want to share this moment with him. Maybe she would in a moment, but not yet.

They hadn’t come. They hadn’t saved him, and Rupert’s stolen goods had stayed stolen, and he’d died there in the desert. Though his wife and child—Plum’s grandfather—had survived anyway. The blade: that was what Betsy took. At first Plum wondered about the spell, but it was there too, cut up and bound into the notebook at the end, on lumpy parchment slightly smaller than the pages around it: a dozen leaves of close writing in a foreign script.

Then it all went blurry, because Plum’s eyes were full of tears. She had denied it all her life, that any of it was real, but not anymore. Not after this, and not after what the girl in the mirror had shown her. It had really happened. It wasn’t just a story, it was a true story. It had found her, drawn her into its pages, and now it was time for her to play her part in it. Fillory had chewed up her ancestors and spat them out. Now it was hungry again and coming for her, and she would have to find a way to face it.

She put her head in her hands and leaked some more tears, there in the lobby of the Amenia train station. After five minutes she got up and went to the snack bar for some napkins to blow her nose on.

“Quentin,” she said when she got back. “I think Fillory was real.” It was hard to force the words out. They didn’t want to be said. “I know it sounds crazy, but I think he was telling the truth. I think it was all real.”

Quentin only nodded. He didn’t look surprised. If anything she suspected him of having dabbed away a tear or two when she wasn’t looking.

“It is real, Plum,” he said. “I’ve been there.”





CHAPTER 19


The townhouse stood on a back street in the West Village, one of the oddly angled ones where the orderly grid of Manhattan starts to break down into chaos below Fourteenth Street. It didn’t get much traffic, which was part of the point: it was a discreet address. Plum said she’d bought it with money from her grandparents, her share of the Fillory royalties that they’d put in trust, intending to use it as a crash pad during her glorious postgraduation future in New York. Now she and Quentin were crashing there a little early.