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“Brian, are you coming to the faculty meeting this afternoon?”
Brian turns away from his computer. One of the other PhD candidates, Abigail, is hovering in the doorway of his office. He’s pretty sure Abigail is into him. Maybe. It’s a definite possibility. She sat in on his freshman English class “just for fun” once and there’s pretty much nothing fun about teaching freshman English, so it seems likely.
“Uh, I wasn’t really planning on it,” Brian admits. They’re supposed to go to faculty meetings, technically, but no one really notices or cares if the PhD students show up or not and the only opening his therapist had for two weeks is this afternoon.
“Haven’t you heard what Seamus has planned?” Abigail presses. “They’re starting to plan an English department trip for next summer. They’re going to need faculty volunteers.”
“Where to?” Brian asks idly. He highly doubts he’ll still be here next summer. He doesn’t know where he will be or why he thinks that, but he just knows, deep down, it won’t be here.
“England,” Abigail says excitedly. “They’re going to do a tour of all the major British lit sites. Shakespeare, Jane Austen, all the usuals.” She raises her eyebrows teasingly. “And of course, your favorite—Christopher Plover.”
Brian groans. “That pretentious dick.”
Abigail laughs. “I do not understand how you’re getting a PhD in literature and you hate the Fillory books.”
“Because I’m getting a PhD in comparative literature,” Brian reminds her. “So I compared the books to other fantasy literature and saw how lacking they are. And there’s all those rumors about Plover. I mean, he probably did something awful to those kids.”
“I am not getting sucked into this argument again,” Abigail says, grinning. “I learned my lesson last year.”
“Are you going to volunteer?” Brian asks. “For the trip?”
“Yeah, of course,” Abigail says. She tilts her head, still smiling. “You should sign up, too. It’d be cool to go together.”
Brian’s smile feels frozen now. He doesn’t know what his hang-up is with Abigail. She’s beautiful and smart and funny and she seems to actually enjoy talking to him. But there’s something he can’t quite put his finger on. She reminds him of someone, sort of, but he hasn’t been able to figure out who. He gets flashes of it every time she pushes her glasses up her nose.
“Maybe I will,” he says. She probably takes it as confirmation rather than the brush-off it actually is. She ducks her head, still smiling.
“Cool,” she says. “See you later.”
He waits for a minute after she’s gone, and then he packs up his stuff and leaves.
“Quentin. Quentin. Come on, fuck, look at me.”
It’s some guy he doesn’t know. Why is someone he doesn’t know in his dream? If it’s his dream, shouldn’t the dream tell him who it is?”
“I’m not part of your dream. I’m Penny, and I’m a Traveler. I’m astral-projecting into your dream right now. Ugh, how are your dreams more nerdy now? Look, try to remember. Magic is real. You went to Brakebills, and you went to Fillory, and now the Library’s got you under a mindfuck. I can only project during this book club thing because it’s the only time they take my chains off, so I don’t have much time, okay? Quentin. Listen.”
Who’s Quentin?
“I’ve been working so fucking hard to find everyone. Alice is here in the library with me, but they’ve got her locked up.”
“Alice.” The word feels strange in his mouth. Familiar. But he doesn’t know anyone named Alice. Alice in Wonderland?
“Uh, yeah, and I’m Penny. Thanks for caring, you dick. Margo’s already gotten rid of the memory spell but she can’t do a lot because she’s hiding from the Library.”
“Margo,” he echoes slowly. Margo…who’s Margo?
“Her fairy eye helped her get out of the spell. Kady recognized me for like a second but lost it when she woke up. Julia won’t even look at me when I go to her dreams. And the other me you guys picked up doesn’t remember a fucking thing.”
“Julia!” He knows Julia. Doesn’t he know Julia? “Jules?”
“Yeah. Listen, I’ve found everyone but Eliot. I don’t know where the fuck he is and that seems like a really bad sign.”
“Eliot?” Dark hair, pale skin, soft smirk. Lips on his lips. A little boy. A woman smiling at them. Eliot holding hands with Margo. Her fairy eye.
“Alice thinks Eliot’s in trouble.” Alice! His chest starts to hurt.
“In trouble?” He asks. Eliot can’t be in trouble. Eliot has to be safe. Quentin frowns. “Penny?”
“Oh, thank God,” Penny says. “Shit, Eliot’s going to be so fucking smug if he ever finds out he’s what reminded you of who you are.”
Quentin blinks. “How are you here? I thought the Library…wait, the Library! The memory spells!”
“Oh my God, I already told you all this,” Penny says impatiently. “Quentin, listen, I’m out of time. It’s almost my turn to talk about Kanye. But Alice says the monster can hop bodies. We think—she thinks maybe it got Eliot and that’s why I can’t find him.”
“You think Eliot’s dead?” Quentin asks faintly. “No, no, no. Not again.”
“We don’t know if he is,” Penny says. “The monster might be…I don’t know. Possessing him.”
“No, Eliot,” Quentin breathes.
“You have to remember, Quentin. Remember and look for him!” Penny looks over his shoulder at something Quentin can’t see. “Fuck, they’re all looking at me. Quentin, find Eliot!”
Penny’s gone. Quentin wakes up, gasping. Eliot needs him. Eliot’s in trouble. They’re all in trouble. Hopefully Margo’s eye can help, and maybe there’s some spark left in Julia from the whole goddess thing. But Eliot—
Brian rubs his eyes. He knows he had a strange dream, but it’s all slipping away like sand. By the time he gets out of bed, he doesn’t remember a thing.
When Brian rounds the corner and bumps into the tall man, there’s a second where his entire body fills with joy. His heart leaps, and his smile is instantaneous. He doesn’t know why. The guy’s attractive, sure, but Brian doesn’t know him. Does he? Maybe he does. He can’t place how, though.
“Quentin, I found you,” he says. Brian laughs nervously. Quentin? The man asks for a card trick. Brian doesn’t know any card tricks. The man isn’t smoking, but Brian feels like he should be. A cigarette dangling from his lips would look more natural.
And then the man is following him. Brian’s freaking the fuck out. Is this some kind of serial killer? Ted Bundy was attractive and charming, too. Is Brian about to die?
“Let’s go,” the man says.
“Look, I don’t know who—” Brian starts.
“You do know who I am,” the man cuts him off. “We met in Blackspire.”
Brian’s head feels like it’s splitting open. Blackspire. It sounds familiar. Maybe it’s from a book. It sounds like Tolkien, though he knows Tolkien well enough to know it isn’t one of his.
“My name is—”
“Quentin Coldwater,” the man interrupts again. It zaps something in the back of Quentin’s head. Brian’s head. What’s happening?
“You’ll remember,” the man says confidently. “Now, give me your hand.”
“Listen, man,” Brian says.
The man sighs. “Fine, have it your way.” He rolls his eyes as he grabs Brian’s hand. How many times has Eliot rolled his eyes like that as he grabbed Quentin’s hand?
Wait. Eliot?
Brian doesn’t have time to think about it because they’re flying. In the air.
“Holy shit!” Brian yells. “What the fuck?”
“We have places to be.”
They’re going so fast the landscape beneath them is blurring. Brian’s going to throw up. He’s always had a weak stomach. They touch down in Fillory.
Wait. Fillory? What? Fillory isn’t real. And why does Brian think this is Fillory, anyway?
Except he knows this is Fillory. He recognizes it. This is home. Not this, exactly—this castle is familiar but doesn’t hold that home-feeling in his stomach. But he knows he’s in Fillory. The trees are Fillory, the animals in the woods are Fillory, the opium-filled air is Fillory.
“Is this Fillory?” He asks. Maybe he’s finally snapped. He’s hallucinating that he’s in Fillory. Is this man a hallucination too? If you were, how would asking me help? Brian shakes his head against the echo.
The man claps his hands delightedly. “Your memory is coming back so much faster than I thought! I might not have to lift the spell after all. Maybe you’ll just remember on your own. Oh, Quentin, that would be so cool! Only a really strong magician can do that.”
And then Brian faints.
“Wakey, wakey!”
He groans. His head is throbbing. And his wrists and ankles, too. He blinks and the room swims into focus. Oh. His wrists and ankles are bound. He’s tied to a wall. Kinky, as Eliot would say.
Eliot.
The dark haired man has his head tipped to the side. His smile is wrong. Brian doesn’t know how he knows that, but he does. He also gets a strange image of the man old, with white hair and wrinkles and creaky knees.
“Remember me yet?”
“Eliot,” he chokes out.
“Well, no,” the man says. “But if it’s easier for you, you can call me Eliot. I guess it’s probably confusing since I look like him.”
“Eliot?”
The man stamps his foot petulantly. “This isn’t fun!” Brian flinches as Eliot makes a hand motion like he’s throwing something in Brian’s face.
Quentin gasps, body going taut like someone tugged him in all directions at once. Eliot—no, the monster, inside Eliot’s body—is grinning at him.
“Finally! It was taking forever. I found you and you didn’t remember me. How are we supposed to play if you don’t remember me?”
Quentin’s trembling. It’d be a pretty big shock to come out of a memory spell like that anyway, but to wake up to this? Not good.
“Get out of him,” he says. “You can have me instead. Leave Eliot alone.”
The monster makes an exaggerated frowny face. “But I wouldn’t be able to play with you. No.”
Quentin tries to take a steadying breath. He cannot panic right now. “What do you want to play?” He asks, voice measured.
The monster squeals excitedly. “I’m having so much fun with hide and seek! I found you super fast, didn’t I?”
Quentin swallows hard. “You did,” he says. The knight told him the monster was childlike. Needy. He’ll have to indulge it to get out of this. “But, you know, I can’t find you if I’m tied up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, uh, I hid last time,” Quentin explains. “So this time it’s your turn to hide and I’ll come find you. But you have to untie me first.”
“Hmm.” The monster thinks this over. Quentin can feel tears in his eyes, watching Eliot’s body parading around like that. Can Eliot hear all this? Is he okay in there? “I am going to hide,” the monster concludes. “In a minute. But I’m going to make it more fun.” He makes the same throwing motion toward the wall but uses both hands this time. “There. Now the memory spell’s off all your friends, too. You try to find me and I try to find them. It’s a race!” He takes a step forward.
“Wait!” Quentin cries desperately. “It’s not fair if you get to use, um, teleportation. Because I can’t.”
The monster narrow’s Eliot’s eyes. “I don’t want to walk.”
“Come on,” Quentin says, trying to sound cajoling. Rupert used to take quite a bit of convincing to try new food. This is the voice Quentin used on him. He tries not to think about how Eliot was always better at it. “It won’t be fun if it’s not fair, right?” Quentin tries. “It’ll be too easy for you. You’ll win so fast and then the game will be over.”
“That’s true,” the monster concedes. “Okay, fine. I won’t use teleportation.”
“Are you going to untie me before you go?” Quentin asks. “It’ll give you a big head start if you don’t.”
“No,” the monster says. “I’m not used to traveling without teleportation, so I get a head start. That’s fair.” He casts something. “There. That’ll untie you when I get out of the village.”
“Thanks,” Quentin forces himself to say.
“Okay, time to play!”
“Hey, wait,” Quentin says. “I just have a question.”
“About the rules?”
“No, about…well, um, is Eliot…” Quentin trails off, trying not to think the next word. Alive. “Is he okay?”
“His body is fun,” the monster says, making Quentin swallow convulsively so he doesn’t throw up.
“But is he—I mean, how are you sharing his body?”
The monster shrugs. It shrugs like a little kid, a big heave of shoulders, and not the casually unaffected mannerisms Eliot worked so hard to adopt.
“I just move him out of the way so I have space.”
Quentin holds back a sob. “Can he hear me?”
Eliot’s eyes go blank for a second. “I guess so.”
“Okay.” Quentin’s crying now. He can’t hold back. “Can you tell him—can you please just tell him, um.” Quentin swallows down the lump in his throat. “Tell him I don’t want the greater magic. Not how it ended last time. Not without the beauty of all life. So I’m going to find a different ending for the puzzle this time.”
Hopefully Eliot will get what Quentin means—that Eliot can’t die this time, that Quentin’s going to find a way to save him. Burying Eliot was bad enough the first time, and that was after they got an entire happy lifetime together and Eliot died peacefully. Quentin can’t do it again, not so soon, and not when Eliot’s body looks so young, not knowing he’s trapped in there.
“Okay, whatever,” the monster says. “I’m going now. Count to a hundred, okay? Don’t skip any numbers.”
And then he runs out of the room. Quentin slumps against the ropes holding him up and lets himself break down for a few minutes. How many lifetimes of memories does he have to hold in his head at once? It’s getting so crowded in there, and Quentin’s mental health was never his most stable quality anyway. Where is everyone? Penny’s still trapped in the underworld, obviously, but that leaves the new Penny somewhere out there and everyone else.
“Hey,” Margo says, and Quentin actually screams. “Jesus,” she complains. “You could act a little happier to see me.”
“How—what?” Quentin pants.
“I got this magic fairy eye, remember?” Margo asks. “I guess it can teleport me? I didn’t actually know that until this very second.”
“It has Eliot,” Quentin says. “The monster. It’s in Eliot’s body.”
Margo’s hands pause where they were working on the ropes around Quentin’s feet. “What?”
Quentin sniffs. “He—he must’ve taken over Eliot’s body after Eliot shot the last body he was in.”
Margo goes back to work on the ropes, hands shaking now. “Well, that’s a shit sandwich. Eliot’s not going to be happy. He doesn’t even like to share clothes.”
“God, I—even with the memory spell, when I saw Eliot some part of me knew him. But it wasn’t even him. How are we going to get the monster out of him?”
“One crisis at a time,” Margo instructs. “First we get you out of here and gather the troops.”
“How—”
Penny pops in. “Oh my God, guys.”
Quentin screams again. Margo slaps him, which seems incredibly harsh, given the circumstances. “Get a grip, Nerd King,” she snaps. Then she pulls him in and hugs him tightly.
“I got my memories back like ten minutes ago!” He defends himself, squished against her. “I had to deal with a monster tying me up while looking like my best friend and two people teleporting into the room.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t have time to cry about it,” Margo says. From the way her nostrils are flaring as she struggles to keep her composure, she means that pretty literally. She pulls away from Quentin and turns to Penny. “Are you our Penny or New Penny?”
“New Penny,” Penny says. “But, you know, I don’t think the other one’s coming back. Maybe I should be your Penny now.”
“Cool your jets, New Penny,” Margo says. “Alright, Q, we need to get Julia and Kady. Josh is waiting back at my place. I don’t think we can do anything about Alice. She’s locked up in the Library for violating her contract. And we obviously still don’t know how to get Penny out of the underworld.”
“Penny incepted me,” Quentin remembers suddenly. “Our Penny.”
“Yeah, he did all of us,” Margo says. “Took him months. I say we go for Julia first. Maybe she can whip up some goddess magic and save the day.”
Quentin huffs. “That would be really easy,” he points out. “Does that seem like something that would happen for us?”
Margo sighs. “Of course not. Alright. To the portal we go.”
“The portal?” Quentin asks, rubbing his wrists. “How can we use a portal without magic?”
Margo points to her eye. “Fairy magic, bitch. It isn’t super powerful but it gets the job done.”
“The monster isn’t going to like that,” Quentin mutters, remembering their deal against teleportation.
“Oh, I didn’t know we were catering to the monster that took our best friend hostage in his own body,” Margo snaps. “Shut up and get in the portal.”
“What portal?” Quentin asks, but she’s already opened it and shoved him through before he can finish the question. And suddenly he’s blinking at the familiar sights of New York.
“How are we going to find Jules?” Quentin asks.
“Our Penny gave me her address,” Margo says. “Good thing I felt the monster take you. I think my eye put some kind of magic Lo-Jack on you guys. Anytime you go into another world, I feel it. Penny’s been driving me nuts.”
“Sorry,” he says, unapologetic as he pops up right next to Quentin. Quentin doesn’t scream this time. He jumps a little, but he passes it off as moving out of someone’s way on the sidewalk. They don’t even have to go to Julia’s apartment; a block away, they find her sprinting down the street.
“Jules!” Quentin yells.
“Q!” She sobs. She runs straight into him, colliding hard enough to make him stagger. She grabs him and doesn’t let go. He can feel her trembling against him.
“It’s okay,” he says, even though it’s a huge lie. “We’re going to fix this.”
“How?” Julia asks. “How are we supposed to free magic from the Library? Another quest?”
“Oh,” Quentin says. “I mean—yeah, we have to fix that, too. But first we have to get Eliot out.”
“Out?” Julia asks blankly. “Out of where?”
Quentin swallows hard, remembering the odd tilt to Eliot’s head, the way his eyes were open a hair too wide to be him.
“The monster has him,” Quentin murmurs. It’s starting to really hit him, now that he’s coming down from the adrenaline of getting his memories back and being kidnapped. “Oh, God, the monster has him.”
“Q,” Margo says sternly. “This is not where we break down, got it? We have to get to Kady, and then we go back to Blackspire and make a plan.” Her voice is strong, but Quentin sees her bite her lip hard.
“Why Blackspire?” Julia asks.
“That thing’s following us,” Margo points out. “I don’t want him on Earth and I sure as fuck don’t want him in my kingdom for real. We keep him as far from main Fillory and Fen as possible.” Her voice is starting to shake now as she says, “El would never forgive himself if the people saw his body wrecking the place. And Fen’s been through enough.”
“Yeah,” Quentin mumbles. He wants to lie down. He wants to curl into a ball on the floor of the shower and just wallow. But that’s not going to help Eliot. He has to keep moving.
“Are you alright?” Penny asks Julia quietly. Quentin still thinks it’s weird to wrap his head around Penny and Julia. It’s a different timeline, but still. He can’t imagine how Kady must feel.
“I’m so much better now,” Julia assures him. “We all have our memories back and we’re going to handle this.” She gives herself a little shake. “How do we get to Kady?”
“Don’t suppose the whole god-touched thing’s back?” Margo asks hopefully. Julia shakes her head sadly.
“I don’t feel anything.”
“Of course. Fairy express it is.”
Margo beams them away. She just looks at them all really hard and then they go. It’s much better than flying with the monster, although Margo staring closely at him makes Quentin nervous, even after all this time of being friends. He hopes her magic fairy eye can’t see his thoughts or anything like that.
“Okay,” Margo says, straightening her jacket. “Kady’s a cop, apparently. She has her memories back, but no one get shot, okay? Also I have a gun on me without a license, so let’s avoid getting searched.”
“You have magic and you still brought a gun?” Julia asks.
“Figuring out what magic the eye can do has been patchy,” Margo explains. “And I believe in preparing on all sides.” They pause outside a police station and Margo whistles. “This place is warded out the ass. I wonder if someone at the Library’s been keeping tabs on her. Penny said she got her memories back every time he went to her dreams. Might’ve tripped some kind of alarm with them.”
“He visited you guys more than once?” Quentin asks, not sure if he should be hurt.
Margo shrugs. “We were strategizing. And obviously he was going to visit Kady.”
It’s a good point. They head into the station and look around. There’s a receptionist behind bullet-proof glass. She raises her eyebrows at the sight of them.
“Something I can help you with?”
“Uh, we’re looking for an officer,” Quentin says. Then he stops, because he realizes he doesn’t know Kady’s name in this fake identity.
The receptionist’s eyebrows get even higher. “Well, we have a lot of them here,” she says. “You need one in particular?”
“Uh,” Quentin says. He doesn’t have anything else in mind.
Margo brushes past him with an impatient little snort. “Listen, I’ve got a complaint about one of your female officers. She searched my boyfriend a little too thoroughly, if you know what I mean. I don’t want anyone else feeling him up and I’d like to file something formally. But she wouldn’t give me her name or badge number! She’s about yay high, big dark hair, puts off this damaged badass vibe?”
Kady rounds a corner. Her eyes widen when she sees them. “Penny,” she says.
The receptionist glances back and forth between Kady and their group. “Is this who you were looking for?” She asks Margo suspiciously.
“I’ll take it from here, Cindy,” Kady says. “Follow me.”
Once they’re outside again, Kady sags. “Oh, God, you guys,” she breathes. “What’s going on?”
“Well, the monster’s using Eliot as a free ride and I think it’s making his Quentin hardon even worse. So we’re on the run, technically, and also our Penny and Alice are still locked up in the Library.” Margo shrugs. “I say we let Alice rot, but she does seem to know stuff about the monster, so maybe we can use her.”
“What’s the plan?” Kady asks.
“We haven’t gotten that far,” Julia admits.
“Come with me, kiddos,” Margo says. “We have to get Josh and then head back to our favorite upside-down, crumbly castle.”
Kady shudders. “I don’t want to go back there.”
“You have no idea,” Quentin mutters.
“Why is Josh at your place?” Penny asks. He raises his eyebrows. “Are you two—”
“No,” Margo says. “Shut up or I’ll set your traveling ass on fire. He was my Uber driver when my memories came back.”
“Of course he was an Uber driver,” Quentin says. “Did he still smoke a ton of weed?”
“Yeah, I guess it’s easiest to implant false memories as close to the real ones as possible.” She shakes her head. “I had such a nice apartment. Okay.” She claps her hands together. “Teleportation bus’s leaving.”
They only pop into her apartment long enough for her to yank the joint out of Josh’s mouth before it can fall onto a plush couch. She smacks Josh to wake him up, and then they’re all squinting in the dim light of Blackspire.
Quentin staggers a little and makes his way to a wall to lean against it. He closes his eyes, trying so hard not to think about Eliot. Don’t think about that thing burning him out from the inside. Don’t think about Eliot trapped. Don’t think about what kinds of things Eliot must’ve seen the monster do.
“Come here, Q.” It’s Margo. She wraps an arm around his shoulder and they slide down the wall to sit on the ground, clinging to each other. “We’re going to get him back,” she vows. “I don’t care what we have to do.”
“I already buried him once,” Quentin mumbles. “It’s not fair. I should get to go first this time.”
Margo laughs a little. “It’s really fucking weird to think you should take turns dying, you know that, right?”
“The monster said it, um, it just shoves Eliot out of the way and takes up whatever space it needs. I’m scared—what if—I mean it said he’s still in there but what does that…” He trails off helplessly.
“There has to be a way for us to research this,” Julia says sensibly.
“Well, Eliot kinda killed the only jailer in history,” Josh points out. “I’m not so sure there’s a book about this.”
Margo takes a deep breath, face hidden against Quentin’s shoulder. He can feel little tremors going through her. Then she sits up straight and lifts her chin. “We need to check any place possible. Penny, go check the Brakebills library. But be careful and travel out the second anything happens. Julia and Kady, I’ll take you to find some of those hedge bitches and find out what they know. Q and Josh, you guys stay here. I’ll open a portal back to Earth but only use it in an emergency. One of you should be asleep as much as possible so Penny can incept you and let us know what he’s finding in the Library.”
Quentin blinks. “That’s it? Stay here and take a nap?”
Margo points a finger in his face. “I’m pretty sure you’re target number one, Q. Stay here and take a nap is probably more dangerous than we should be risking for you.”
“I don’t think the monster wants to kill me,” Quentin says, thinking of how happy it was to find him. “It wants to…play with me.”
Margo blows out a breath. “Well, at least it’s got something in common with El. Maybe that prospect will keep him alive in there.”
“Margo,” Julia chides, giving Penny and Kady dirty looks when they snort.
“Hey, man, be careful,” Josh cuts in. “I thought fucking magic things was no big deal and now I’m a werewolf.”
“No, not like that,” Quentin says quickly, blushing. “The knight told me the monster is, um, childlike. Right now it thinks we’re playing hide and seek.”
Kady huffs. “Hey, remember when the worst thing we had to deal with was a guy who replaced his body parts with moths?”
Everyone else laughs, but Quentin can’t. The beast started all this. Everything that’s happened since the beast is what led them here.
“Alright, let’s get going,” Margo says. “We don’t know what kind of timetable we’re looking at.”
Penny’s gone without another word. Quentin grabs Julia’s arm. “Hey, Jules,” he says. “Um. While you’re out there, um, do you think you could—I mean, if you could check in and, well…” Quentin trails off and blows out a breath.
“Your dad,” Julia guesses softly. She squeezes Quentin’s arm. “Of course, Q.”
“Thanks.”
And then they’re all gone, and it’s just Quentin and Josh. Quentin tries not to sigh. It’s not that he doesn’t like Josh. It’s just that they spent an awful lot of time together locked away in the Brakebills dungeon and Quentin is not looking forward to more of that. But when Josh is human he’s not so bad.
“What happened when you transformed every month?” Quentin asks curiously. “How did they keep your fake memories in place?”
“They reset me every month,” Josh reveals. “That shit’s exhausting.”
“Yeah,” Quentin says. “Okay, um, one of us has to sleep. Do you want—”
“Dude, I so need a nap,” Josh says. “Margo’s had me locked up doing research for like two weeks. I thought we might at least get up to a little something, if you know what I mean, but she wasn’t into it.”
“Oh,” Quentin says. He can’t see why Josh would be surprised by that. “Um. Okay.”
“Anyway, I’m gonna pass out for a while. Wake me up when you want to switch.”
“Sure.” Quentin doesn’t know how he’ll ever be able to sleep again. Josh falls asleep in an instant, apparently completely content to lie here on the ground instead of exploring the castle to find an actual room. Quentin’s pretty jealous. He’s never had that ability, always has to lie there staring at the ceiling and thought-spiraling for a few hours before exhaustion takes over.
And now he has who knows how long to sit here, alone with just his thoughts, hours after looking into Eliot’s face and knowing it wasn’t Eliot. Quentin lets out a long breath. He sits down and curls his knees up to his chest, squeezing his eyes shut. Don’t think about that thing in Eliot’s body.
He thinks of their time at the mosaic instead. He has a lifetime of memories to bring up. The first year there, just the two of them and endless tiles, trips into the village for supplies that gradually became trips into the village to meet up with friends they’d made. Rupert’s fifth birthday, the first one without Arielle, when they were all sad and didn’t feel like celebrating but Eliot, in true Eliot fashion, had organized the best party Fillory had ever seen because he said parties were important for improving morale and there was no way they weren’t going to celebrate Rupert. Watching Eliot bounce grandchildren on his knee, watching Eliot bite his lip as he considered the mosaic and where to lay the next tile. Eliot sitting at Arielle’s side and cracking jokes to make her laugh when they all knew she was dying. Eliot stroking Quentin’s hair as he cried, night after night. Quentin stroking Eliot’s hair when he cried. The first day Eliot found a gray hair and the way he screamed.
Quentin bites back a sob. Maybe this was a bad idea. Not only is he worried about Eliot now, but he lost that Eliot. He buried that Eliot. Thinking of that lifetime is always bittersweet, because they lived happily and Quentin wouldn’t change it, but that lifetime ended and left a permanent ache in his chest.
“Okay,” Quentin whispers to himself. “Come on. Keep it together, Q.”
Positive self-talk is not something he’s excelled at in any timeline.
Luckily, Penny blinks back into the castle before Quentin can get too deeply into his own head. Unluckily, he’s bleeding. Quentin scrambles up to steady him.
“Penny, what happened?” Quentin asks. “Is this from traveling?”
“No,” Penny pants. “The monster was at Brakebills.”
“Shit,” Quentin breathes. The wards wouldn’t keep him out in Eliot’s body. “He hurt you? I thought he’d want to finish the game first.”
“You thought a monster bad enough to be locked away for eternity would stick to rules?” Penny asks scathingly. “You really are an idiot.”
Quentin tells himself to ignore the insult. Penny’s hurt. And an asshole in general, so whatever. He helps Penny sit down and examines the wound. It looks like a stab wound, but it’s at least sort of shallow. “Did he stab you?”
“With magic,” Penny says. “I traveled halfway through his cast so it didn’t get me all the way.”
Quentin shakes his head. “This is worse than I thought,” he mutters. “Um…I’ll go find something to clean it out with.”
“This place is huge,” Penny points out.
“Yeah, but I think it’s just a reversed floorplan of Whitespire. Everything’s backwards, but I know my way around Whitespire well enough that I can find—”
“Okay,” Penny cuts him off. “Thanks. Kind of bleeding here.”
“Right.” Quentin hurries off. At first he’s heading toward where the king’s quarters are in Whitespire before he remembers he just said it’s all flipped. He doesn’t know for sure the monster has been locked up in the king’s quarters here, but he knows the monster wasn’t in the dungeon and he doesn’t see why they wouldn’t give a childlike, vindictive creature the biggest room in the castle.
But Quentin hesitates outside the door. He’s not sure what he’s going to find in there. His brain is expecting Eliot’s draperies and Fen’s window dressings, but the monster could have like…dead bodies or something. Quentin rolls his eyes at himself. The whole point of imprisoning the monster in this castle with only one knight as a guard was so he couldn’t litter the floor with dead bodies. There won’t be any dead bodies in there.
Quentin forces himself to suck it up and push through the heavy door. The room is…empty. Quentin blinks. He walks farther into the room. If the monster wasn’t sleeping in here, where was it sleeping? The hair on the back of his neck stands up. Someone’s behind him.
“Quentin.”
He jumps but swallows down his scream. It’s Eliot. Well, it’s the monster. Quentin turns around slowly and his stomach drops when he sees the cold fury on Eliot’s stolen face.
“You said no teleporting,” the monster reminds him. “But you did.”
Quentin gulps. This is much worse than the time Rupert caught his three parents eating pie after saying he couldn’t have any more. “It was an accident,” Quentin tries.
Eliot’s eyes narrow and Quentin breathes out slowly, trying not to flinch at how off it looks. Quentin’s used to Eliot narrowing his eyes with a smirk, playful. This is calculated.
“An accident?” The monster echoes. “You said you couldn’t.”
Shit. Quentin forgot how closely kids pay attention to rules during games. It’s also strange to think of something running around in Eliot’s body being a kid.
“I, um, I didn’t know I could,” Quentin scrambles to explain. “Because magic’s been gone for a—I mean, I didn’t have my memories, you know? So I, well, I forgot.”
The monster furrows Eliot’s brow as it thinks. Watching Eliot’s face move in unfamiliar expressions is making Quentin want to throw up. It’s Eliot’s face, Eliot’s body, but there’s no question whatsoever that this isn’t Eliot. What if he’s not okay in there? Does it hurt, his shade or his brain or whatever being shoved out of the way so the monster can take over? Is there going to be anything left?
“But you told your friends,” the monster finally says. “And that wasn’t the game.” It takes a step closer to Quentin and a shiver goes through Quentin’s body.
“What do you mean?” He asks carefully. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t want the monster to realize Penny and Josh are out there, off-guard and unprotected. Maybe Penny can travel away before anything happens. But what about Josh? Hopefully Penny will wake him up before he travels so Josh can go through the portal Margo left.
“It was supposed to be I look for your friends and you look for me. We said. But you went to your friends and you told them I was coming! Then it’s not a surprise.”
“I thought it might be more fun for all of us to play together,” Quentin manages to say, heart hammering as the monster steps right up into his space. Eliot’s lip is curling now.
“I don’t want to play with them,” the monster says quietly. Menacingly. “They wanted to hurt me. You’re the only one I want to play with. I want to hurt them back.”
“That’s not—” Quentin swallows hard. “Um, I mean…”
“If you’re going to stay friends with them, then you and me can’t be friends.”
“No, no, no,” Quentin says quickly. “Of course I’m your friend.”
“But you left our game to play with them.” The monster is grabbing the front of Quentin’s shirt now. Quentin can’t help the way his breath is stuttering out of him. “That wasn’t nice.”
“I—” Quentin can’t get a sentence out. He squeaks a little. His chest is getting heavy, like something’s pressing on it. Is this the monster or just Quentin’s fear? Eliot’s fingers clench tighter in Quentin’s shirt at the same time a wave of pain shoots through him, so Quentin figures out quickly it must be the monster. “Please,” he gasps out.
“You have to get in trouble for being mean,” the monster says, teeth clenched.
“Sorry,” Quentin wheezes. He’s starting to panic. He can’t breathe. His legs are twitching uselessly. The monster’s got him up off the ground. He can hear the choking sounds coming from his own throat. That’s distressing. The edges of his vision are going black. He’s going to die. The monster is going to choke him right now and then it’ll go find Penny and Josh and wait for everyone else to come back.
Quentin blinks hard, trying to focus his eyes, but it’s so hard. Eliot’s face in front of him swims. Quentin might be crying now. He’s going to die looking at Eliot’s face, which wouldn’t be such a bad thing if this were actually Eliot. But he doesn’t want this version of Eliot’s face to be the last thing he sees.
“Eliot,” Quentin manages to choke out. He doesn’t know exactly why he’s saying it—maybe the last dying brain cell he has wants to remember Eliot for real.
But Eliot blinks. The hand grabbing Eliot spasms, and then the pressure is letting up a tiny fraction. Enough for air to slice its way into Quentin’s throat. The monster snarls, but before it can do anything else, there’s a sick crack and Eliot’s body drops like a stone.
Margo’s standing there, panting. She blows her bangs out of her face. “Sorry, El,” she says, looking down at the trickle of blood on the butt of her handgun. “You good?” She asks Quentin. “Come on. We need to move.”
“This is a terrible idea,” Quentin hisses for the fifth time.
“We’re out of options,” Margo snaps back, also for the fifth time. They’re dragging Eliot by the ankles into the clean room at Brakebills.
“How are we going to keep him unconscious until we figure out what to do?” Kady asks. “I mean, we could keep knocking him out, but it could scramble his brains.”
“We have the magic to keep him under,” Dean Fogg. “Hopefully.”
“I’m staying with him the entire time,” Quentin says. “I don’t trust you not to go running to the Library.”
Dean Fogg sighs a little, but he doesn’t argue. Julia frowns.
“But if you’re in the clean room, you won’t have any magic either,” she says. “What if you need to fight back?”
“What’s he going to do in the clean room while he’s unconscious?” Quentin asks. It’s totally hypothetical. He absolutely does not want to consider what the monster could do.
“What, you think you’re responsible for this thing since you were supposed to stay in the castle with it?” Penny asks, nudging Eliot’s still-unconscious body with his toe. Margo kicks him away.
“You’re an idiot,” she huffs. “We can take turns, Q.”
“This is seeming too easy,” Quentin says, stomach rolling as he looks down. Unconscious like this, it just looks like Eliot, passed out after some party.
“Well…” Julia and Kady exchange a look.
“What?” Quentin asks apprehensively.
“We’re, uh, bringing in some more help,” Julia says carefully. Quentin narrows his eyes.
“What help?”
“Alice,” Josh says, never one to tiptoe around delicate conversations. “Fogg got her a day pass for this.”
Quentin’s stomach drops. “Why?”
“Because she knows more than any of us,” Penny points out. “In every timeline.”
“She learned things as a niffin none of us could hope to find out,” Dean Fogg adds. “Now that she has her memory back, she could remember something.”
“Will she?” Quentin asks, bitterness rising in his throat.
“It’s for the whole world, Q,” Julia says. Margo meets Quentin’s eyes, and he knows she can tell he kind of forgot about the fate of the world. Quentin was just considering getting the monster out of Eliot. She nods at him. It’s her first concern, too.
“This is going to use up our magic allotment for the entire quarter,” Dean Fogg mutters.
“It’s the absolute least you could do,” Kady snaps. He holds up a hand to stave off the impending rant about his betrayal.
“We need to close the door now,” Dean Fogg says. “He should stay unconscious until we wake him up.”
“Unless the terrifyingly powerful monster in his body is immune to that spell or there’s not enough magic to sustain it,” Josh says. He raises his eyebrows at the dirty looks everyone is throwing his way. “What? Everyone was thinking it.”
“We’ll stay close,” Julia promises, squeezing Quentin’s hand.
“Bang on the door if you need help,” Margo adds.
“Assuming you’re alive,” Penny says. Quentin doesn’t say anything out loud, but in his heart he feels certain the monster won’t kill him. Eliot’s still in there. Eliot won’t let it kill Quentin.
Quentin drops to the ground beside Eliot’s still form. He lifts Eliot’s head into his lap and leans against the wall, settling in for the long wait. He brushes his fingers through Eliot’s hair. It’s long. The curls are getting unruly. Quentin might have liked it if Eliot himself had chosen to grow it that way; as it is now, Quentin’s going to beg Eliot to cut it right away.
“Hey,” Quentin says softly. “I don’t know if you can hear me. Um…I don’t really know what to say. Just. I’m here, okay? And I’m not leaving.” He blinks away tears. “Thanks for saving me. I know you’re—I’m so fucking glad you’re still in there. I was so scared, El. When you’re you again, after we get rid of that thing, I owe you big time. Anything you want. Anything.” He huffs, cheeks flushing even though no one can hear him. Or maybe Eliot can, but he doesn’t really need to blush if it’s Eliot listening. “Anyway. We’ll get you back soon. I, um. I miss you, Eliot. Even when I didn’t have my memories, I think I missed you anyway. I would get this feeling sometimes, uh, I would get so fucking homesick. And it didn’t make sense because, you know, because I was there. What that me thought already was home. But I was homesick for you. And Rupert. I had dreams about that life. I miss it. But I still have you, so…” He sighs. “So come back, okay? Hurry, please. Please.”
Quentin drags his sleeve over his running nose. He tips his head back against the wall. It’s all going to be okay. They’ll figure something out and Eliot will be back. Quentin closes his eyes, listening to the sound of Eliot’s breathing. It’s not quite as steady as it should be, as it was back at the mosaic, but it’s familiar, and it lulls him to sleep.
“Hey. Q.”
Quentin jumps. For a second, he has no idea where he is or what’s going on. He doesn’t freak out, because if Eliot’s asleep in his lap things can’t be too bad. But then he looks into Margo’s two seemingly-normal eyes and it all comes rushing back. Yes, it really is that fucking bad.
“Did you find something?” He asks, mouth dry.
Margo sighs. “Yeah,” she says. “But…it’s not great.”
Quentin’s heart starts beating faster. “What do you mean?”
“Come out for a second so you can hear what everyone has to say.”
Quentin doesn’t let himself second-guess or feel self-conscious as he bends down and kisses Eliot’s forehead. Margo doesn’t say anything, of course. She’s crouching at his side and she takes a second to squeeze Eliot’s shoulder before standing up.
Quentin’s stomach drops when he sees Alice. He thought he’d be ready for that, or too numb from worry over Eliot to feel awkward. Unfortunately, he was wrong. He can’t stop thinking about the last time he saw her, how she told him she loved him but betrayed them all. Quentin rubs his eyes.
“What are we going to do?” He asks.
“I found a spell in the library archives I was transcribing.” Alice gets right to brass tacks. Quentin appreciates it. She’s always been able to focus on work when she needs to. “I think it’s something they were sending to the Poison Room, but they’ve been making me recopy old records. This spell doesn’t even have a name, but it talks about the monster of the gods, so I think it’s something they were cooking up just in case that thing got loose.”
“Okay,” Quentin says. “What are the downsides?”
“Well, for one thing, it takes a fuckton of energy,” Kady says, reading over Alice’s shoulder. “This is cooperative and I think it's supposed to be cooperative with gods.”
“So it could niffin all of us out,” Josh says. “Fuck.”
“Um, yeah, and also, best case downside?” Alice continues. “We get Eliot back with no shade. It’ll kill the monster, but first it binds it to Eliot’s shade to keep it in one place and make it more mortal.”
No one says anything for a second. “No shade?” Julia echoes nervously, obviously remembering her own time without her shade. Alice nods grimly, in the same boat.
“Is there any chance we get Eliot back with his shade?” Kady asks.
Alice scoffs. “Sure, if the spell goes completely perfectly with no downsides, but what are the chances of that?”
“Fuck,” Penny says. “We all know how Eliot is with his shade. I can’t imag—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Margo explodes, launching herself at Penny and slapping him. “Don’t you fucking talking about him like that. You don’t even know him. You’re not even the Penny who’s supposed to be here and you’re nothing and—”
“Margo!” Julia and Kady intervene, pulling Margo away. Quentin doesn’t move a muscle, because he’d like to slap Penny himself.
“I was kidding,” Penny defends himself, hands over his head. “I thought it would lighten the mood. Margo, hey. Margo. I’m sorry.”
He sounds sincere enough. Quentin swallows. Margo’s breathing raggedly. “Don’t joke about him right now,” she spits.
“I’m sorry,” Penny repeats. “I really am.”
“Um, okay,” Alice says nervously, trying to get them back on track. “I mean, Eliot losing his shade is our best case scenario. And then we’ve got Eliot back but he won’t have his shade.”
“So we’ll go down to the underworld and get it back,” Margo says impatiently, shoving her hair out of her face. She juts her chin at Kady. “We’ll find a way to get the real Penny back while we’re down there.”
“What’s the worst-case scenario?” Quentin asks.
“Did you miss the part where we all niffin out?” Josh asks.
“Actually, we could potentially niffin out and blow Eliot up,” Alice says, almost apologetic.
Quentin shoves a hand through his hair, frustrated. “Well, what other choice do we have?” He asks.
Alice and Dean Fogg exchange a look Quentin does not like one bit. Margo must agree, because she grabs his arm right away.
“There’s a spell that would bind the monster in place and then we could—kill the host,” Alice says delicately.
“No,” Quentin spits immediately. Margo’s nails are digging into his arm painfully.
“Quentin, we have to think about the big picture,” Dean Fogg tries.
“No!” Quentin yells. “We’re not doing that.”
“We could outvote you,” Dean Fogg says.
“It’s not a vote,” Margo says, teeth clenched.
“You’ll have to kill me first,” Quentin says.
“Q,” Julia breaks in gently. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but we have to think about the entire world right now.”
“Kill me first,” Quentin repeats, raising his chin. “I’m serious.”
“We don’t even know if there’s anything Eliot left in there,” Kady says quietly, not meeting Quentin’s eyes.
“He’s in there!” Quentin insists. “The monster tried to kill me and Eliot fought back. Before Margo came in. Eliot fought back and the monster lost control for a second.”
He sees Julia and Kady waver. The thought of killing Eliot, knowing he’s still in there, won’t sit well with either of them. Quentin doesn’t look at Dean Fogg. No doubt he’s fine with it. If he can just get them all to understand.
“It’s true,” Margo says. She taps her fairy eye. “This thing sees shades. Eliot’s is still in there.”
“Whoa,” Julia breathes. “Seriously? You can see everyone’s shade?”
“Yes,” Margo says. “Now let’s get to work on that spell.”
“It’s more of an exorcism than a spell, honestly,” Alice says.
“But it takes a crazy amount of magic,” Josh reminds everyone. “How are we going to do that without attracting attention of the Library? Won’t they notice a huge power surge?”
“They will,” Dean Fogg says.
“Okay,” Kady says. “There’s got to be a hedge market for magic. I can go to the old spots and find out.”
“But what if it’s just fairy dust again?” Julia says. She looks at Dean Fogg. “You said Irene had a whole supply.”
“It’s the fairy queen,” Margo says grimly. “Fen told me. She made a deal that no other fairies would be hurt in exchange for her.”
Julia’s eyes bug out. “What?”
Margo shakes her head. “Fen couldn’t talk her out of it.”
“Shit,” Kady breathes.
“If she already sacrificed herself…” Josh lets it hang.
But Dean Fogg shakes his head. “I know for a fact hedges don’t have magic. They especially don’t have access to Irene’s stash. She kept all of it for their family.”
“I can’t wait to kill her,” Julia says, eyes hard. Quentin looks at her, concerned. That’s not something Julia would normally be saying. Then again, Irene is pretty evil.
“Okay, so no fairy dust,” Penny says, bringing them back on track. “What else can we do?”
“I can get us fairy dust,” Margo says. Before anyone can say anything, she takes a deep breath and casts at her own face. She screams as her eye pops out. She staggers, bleeding, but then she’s holding the fairy eye, the magic glamor on it dropping immediately.
“Margo!” Quentin yells.
“Oh, shit!” Dean Fogg yells.
“Okay,” Margo pants. “We better hurry up. Someone grind this up and let's get to work.”
“I’m a hybrid, aren’t I?” Penny asks. “We can use some of me, too.”
“Penny,” Julia says.
“We need all the magic we can get,” Penny points out. He grits his teeth and casts over his feet, coming away with three toes. “Sorry,” he says, sweating and gray-faced. “I couldn’t spare my fingers.”
“I’m going to puke,” Josh warns as Julia hovers over Penny and Margo, casting over their wounds. She knows the most healing magic of any of them.
“Toes and eyeballs,” Dean Fogg says, sounding a bit faint.
“Wait, do I need to add something to this stew?” Josh asks. “I don’t know where werewolves fall on the magical creature chart.”
“No,” Alice says quickly. “We’d all get it. And I think you’d have to be transformed for it to be magic at all.”
“Wow, hi, guys!” Todd chirps, coming up behind them in the hallway. “So good to see you all! I’ve really missed—” He blanches at the sight of Margo holding her eyeball and Penny holding his toes. “What the fuck?”
“Todd, great,” Alice says. “We need as many people as we can get for this spell.”
“What?” Todd asks, high-pitched with panic.
“We’re saving Eliot,” Quentin says. “Are you with us?”
“Yeah,” Todd says without hesitation, eyes still locked on the dismembered body parts. “Saving him from what?”
“A monster,” Margo says. “We don’t have time to get into details. But we could all niffin out, Eliot could die, we could all die, et cetera, et cetera. Still in?”
Todd gulps. He looks around at everyone’s faces. “Um. Yes. For Eliot.”
“Also, we’re going to grind up that eyeball and those toes and do lines of them,” Josh says. “So. There’s that.”
Todd’s eyes get even wider somehow. “Holy fuck.”
“Let’s go,” Quentin says, unable to stand around talking about it anymore. “Come on.” He grimaces as he takes Penny’s toes and Margo’s eyeball, but he ignores the discomfort. It’s nothing to how they’re feeling right now. He could do the spell to grind wheat in his sleep after his life at the mosaic, so soon he’s holding a pile of magic cocaine.
“It’s kind of poetic that we’re doing lines to save El,” Margo sniffs, still a bit teary in her remaining eye. Quentin huffs.
“Wait until he hears we snorted your eye for him,” he says. Margo laughs, shakily.
“This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever done,” Todd says.
“Oh, honey, I took you to Encanto Oculto,” Margo says. “We both know that’s not true.”
Todd goes bright red and holds out his hand for his share. Quentin tries not to think too hard about what he’s passing around as everyone takes some. He thinks Penny’s toes are worse than Margo’s eye. An eye just seems way less gross than toes.
“Everyone ready?” Dean Fogg asks grimly. “Remember, the dust is just a boost. We’ll still be using a great deal of Brakebills’ magic stores, so we could potentially still draw the Library’s attention. Especially if they notice Alice is missing. Alice, how long does the spell last?”
Alice shrugs. “We can’t say for sure. It depends on the monster and Eliot.”
“Alright, everyone,” Margo says, High King voice firmly in place. “We are doing this to save Eliot. What will not save Eliot is if someone else sacrifices themselves and takes on the monster. That’s just shifting the problem around. No self-sacrificing, got it?”
She doesn’t look at Quentin, but he can tell she’s talking to him. Everyone else can, too, because they all look at him. He doesn’t say anything. He knows Eliot would never forgive himself if Quentin took the monster in to save him. And he doesn’t think the monster would do it, anyway. It would kill them all first.
“Alright,” Dean Fogg says. “Let’s go.”
Quentin takes a deep breath and snorts the powder up before we can think too hard. It’s for Eliot. There’s no question he’s doing this, regardless of the level of grossness.
“Whoa,” Josh says. “That’s some good shit.”
“Stay focused,” Quentin growls. But he tips his head. “Hey. You’re a naturalist,” he mumbles. “If there’s—I mean, if you could just sort of, um, focus on keeping Eliot and his shade alive…”
Josh puts his hand on Quentin’s shoulder. “You got it,” he says.
“Okay,” Quentin breathes. He unlocks the door to the clean room. “Let’s go.”
They form a circle around Eliot’s prone body. “Get ready,” Alice warns. “As soon as I start the incantation, he’ll wake up. And he won’t be happy. He can’t get out of the circle, so no one break it. Everybody ready?”
Quentin takes Margo’s hand on one side and Julia’s on the other. Across the circle, Alice meets his eyes. She gives him a sad little smile and nods. She gets it, Quentin realizes. She knows what he feels for Eliot. And she’s doing this…for them. For the world, yes, and for magic, and to make up for her betraying them before, but at least part of her motivation here is for him. To make it up to him. And because she cares about him. He nods back, hoping she understands what he means. He can’t really forgive her, not fully, but he’s grateful for this. Alice looks around to make sure everyone’s hands are joined. Then she closes her eyes and starts the incantation.
Eliot’s body jerks upright like a marionette. Blue light zaps along the edges of the circle they’re forming, trapping the monster inside.
“You can’t!” The monster yells. “It isn’t fair!” It gets as close to Alice as it can without touching the blue light. “Stop!” It screams in her face.
Alice doesn’t waver. The magic flowing through their joined hands is hot enough to burn. Quentin can feel blisters forming. Somewhere in the circle, someone yelps in pain.
“Don’t let go!” Julia reminds them all.
Eliot’s limbs are spasming. Margo’s grip on Quentin’s hand gets tighter at the sight. Quentin can’t breathe. It looks like Eliot’s in pain. What if they kill him? Quentin won’t be able to live knowing they killed him. Knowing he killed him. He pushes the thought away and focuses on the spell. Alice is doing most of the work, with the incantation, but it requires all their magic and power. Quentin focuses on Eliot, on willing him to stay strong. Willing the monster to die.
“You’re killing him!” The monster yells. “Humans can’t take this!”
Quentin grits his teeth and tries not to listen. Beside him, Margo lets out a little whimper, but her grip is as strong as ever. Let Eliot live, Quentin chants in his head. He doesn’t know if he’s praying or making it into a spell. Whatever works.
Eliot’s body gives a sudden jerk. The monster falls silent. Eliot falls to the ground. Alice’s voice gets louder. Eliot’s twitching. Blood starts to stream from his nose and mouth.
“Eliot!” Quentin yells, unable to stop himself. Margo is sobbing.
“Oh, God,” Julia says. “Our Lady, anyone, please, please.”
Eliot’s eyes snap open and meet Quentin’s. It’s Eliot, Quentin can tell, but the monster is still lurking in there. It won’t let go. Quentin’s crying. What if Eliot’s not strong enough? Quentin is watching the life fade out of Eliot’s eyes.
“No,” Quentin whispers. No, this will not happen. “Close the circle,” he tells Julia. Before she can respond, he lets go and jumps into the circle.
“Quentin!” Julia screams.
“No, Quentin!” Margo sobs, but she takes Julia’s hand and closes the circle. Quentin drops to his knees beside Eliot. It feels like he just jumped into a fire; the magic is burning through him, zapping along every part of him. It’s the most extreme agony he’s ever felt, and he cries out. Eliot hasn’t broken eye contact since he opened his eyes.
Quentin lies down beside him. Eliot died for the quest last time. Quentin died, too, but after he finished that part of the quest. Not this time. They’re going together this time. Quentin presses his forehead to Eliot’s, feeling the air leaving his lungs. The magic circle is too powerful. His body can’t take it.
He remembers the first time he saw Eliot, long and languid up on that wall. He’d been one of the most beautiful people Quentin had ever seen. Definitely the most intimidating, at least until Quentin met Margo. Quentin thinks of all the times he saw Eliot and Margo cuddled up together, whispering and laughing. Scheming and gossiping, mostly. He thinks of kissing Eliot, thinks of how Eliot’s eyes shone as Quentin crowned him High King of Fillory. He remembers everything Eliot’s done for the kingdom that ousted him. He thinks of how Eliot shouldered every responsibility Fillory threw at him, how he grew to love Fen and took to Fray even without truly believing she was his.
And their family, of course. Quentin sees Eliot at the mosaic, laughing hysterically as they both fell to pieces from frustration. He remembers the feeling of the tiles beneath them as they moved against each other on top of the mosaic. He pictures Eliot holding Rupert in his arms for the first time, wonder and terror and love written all over his face. Grief stabs through him as he remembers digging Eliot’s grave.
But Quentin’s not going anywhere this time. He can feel blood on his own face to match Eliot’s. Everything is pain and burning and it feels like something is scooping out his insides. Quentin groans, unable to even scream out his agony, and nods at Eliot. I love you, he thinks. I’m going with you.
Eliot nods back, just barely, as his eyes flutter shut. His body shudders and falls still. He’s not breathing. Quentin can’t even mourn, really. He closes his own eyes, pressed against Eliot, and everything goes dark.
Sounds. Voices? Muffled. Everything hurts.
“—don’t know what we’re going to do now.”
“—have to move soon, if they’re coming for—”
“—anywhere? They’re not exactly in any shape—”
It still feels like there’s fire inside his veins. His veins? He has veins? Where is he? Who is he? Everything in his head is so jumbled. But there’s something pricking at the back of his mind. He’s worried about something. There’s something urgent he needs to find out.
He just wishes he knew what.
He opens his eyes. Jules is right there, right over him. Margo, too, her empty eye covered with what looks like a pirate costume eye-patch from a kid’s Halloween costume.
“Q,” Julia breathes. “Oh, my God, you guys, Q’s awake!”
Q. That’s him. Quentin. And that urgent worry is Eliot. He opens his mouth, but he can’t make a sound.
“Hang on, hang on,” Julia says frantically. She grabs him a glass of water and helps him drink. “The magic pretty much burned you alive.”
“Eliot,” he whispers.
“He’s alive,” she says. “That’s all we know.”
Margo hasn’t said a word. She’s holding his hand, looking into his eyes, crying out of her one eye.
“We healed you as fast as we could,” Julia says. “But Brakebills didn’t have much magic left and—and we’re worried about the Library.”
Quentin can’t think about any of that. He just needs to know Eliot’s okay. He can’t really talk though. His throat isn’t working right. At least he can breathe. And as far as he can tell, he has all his appendages. His head feels like someone hit him with a hammer.
“How could you do that?” Margo finally asks. Her voice is so quiet Quentin almost doesn’t hear her. “How could you do something so fucking stupid?”
“Margo,” he manages to say.
“No, Q, don’t,” she cuts him off, voice shaking. “Did you stop to think for one second about what your noble bullshit would do to the rest of us?”
He blinks, concerned. Did someone get hurt? Did the monster get out in the split second gap in the circle?
Margo sniffles. “What if I lost you both?” She whispers. “Did you think about that, you asshole? What would I have done?”
She would have kept fighting, that’s for sure. She would’ve taken on the Library and Irene herself, would have stormed into the underworld and pulled Penny right out of there. She would’ve shown the world what happens when Margo the Destroyer is on the warpath.
But she would have been so heartbroken. He didn’t stop to think about that. Of course he didn’t. He never stops to think in the heat of the moment.
“Here,” he pushes out.
Margo shakes her head, lips pressed together. “Yeah, you’re here,” she agrees. “For now. Until I kill you for doing that to me.”
If he could, he’d laugh. He wants to know where Eliot is. He wants to see Eliot with his own eyes, feel his body and make sure he’s alive.
“We’re going to have to move as soon as possible,” Julia says apologetically. “Fogg’s doing as much damage control as he can. He’s telling the Library Alice escaped and came back to steal some spells and that’s what the big magic surge was, but we don’t know how long that’ll work.”
“We don’t know if you have shade,” Margo cuts in. “Either of you.”
Quentin blinks. He does feel a little weird. He feels sort of…mixed up. But surely that’s understandable? He’s barely conscious.
“Do you feel empty?” Julia asks. “No guilt, no moral quandaries, not even any love?”
Quentin manages to squeeze Margo’s fingers. He shakes his head, smiling as best he can. His whole chest is full of love. The guilt and worry and self-loathing that always live in the back of his head are all still there, though they feel lighter. It’s like someone turned down the volume on them.
“You still love us, huh?” Margo asks, laughing through her tears. “I mean, even without a shade you might. Who could blame you?”
Julia shakes her head. She’s crying and smiling now, too. “No,” she says. “No, you can’t love without your shade.” She bends down to kiss his cheek. “I’d see it in your eyes. You’re still Q.”
He nods a bit. But what about Eliot? Quentin tries to sit up and Julia and Margo both shove him back down. He puffs out the tiniest sigh.
“Everyone?” He asks.
“Fogg’s holding off the Library. Everyone else is hiding.”
“Eliot,” Quentin says.
“He’s right over there,” Margo says. “He hasn’t even moved.”
Quentin whines a bit. “Eliot,” he repeats.
“We can’t lift either of you without magic,” Julia points out. “So we can’t move you.”
“Oh, here,” Margo says, shoving at the bed. It takes both her and Julia, shoving and swearing and sweating, but they move the bed over and press it next to the one Eliot’s lying in. Quentin feels like all his muscles relax when he sees Eliot. His eyes are closed and he’s unnaturally still with a wide gash on his cheek that’s probably going to scar and make him scream when he sees it, but his chest is rising and falling. He’s there.
“Eliot,” Quentin breathes. Maybe he’s imagining it, but he’s pretty sure Eliot’s face relaxes a little when Quentin gets closer.
“Whoa,” Margo says. “Okay, that was weird.”
So he wasn’t imagining it. He can’t explain how, but he knows Eliot is okay. Not great, obviously, because he was possessed by a horrifying monster for months, but he’s alive in there. Guilt is eating him away, along with fear and shock and love. But right now he’s resting relatively easy.
How does Quentin know that?
“Something weird,” Quentin tries to say. He’s not going to be able to explain all this through talking, not right now. But he can’t even do more than wiggle his fingers, so he won’t be able to write anything down.
“What?” Julia asks. “What’s weird?” Quentin just shakes his head. He can’t explain it right now. And he’s probably just delusional anyway.
“Saint hedge bitch here got a spark back,” Margo says, nudging Julia with her elbow. “You already passed out, so you didn’t see it, but her whole body went gold.”
Julia shrugs. “It’s not much. But I can feel it in there. And I know how to build it up this time. I wish I had more so I could heal you both totally, but I think it’s going to take a while.”
Quentin pats her hand. He’s so glad Julia has her powers back. Her…goddessness back? Quentin’s too tired to think properly.
“Oh,” Margo breathes, scrambling over to Eliot’s side. “I think he’s waking up. El. Hey, honey, you in there?”
Quentin can feel tears escaping his eyes as Eliot’s open.
And then he feels scared and confused. But sort of—distantly. He can still feel his own relief and happiness, but he can also feel fear and confusion in there. Like he’s half-happy, half-confused. Quentin makes a questioning noise.
“You okay?” Julia asks.
“Q,” Eliot says.
“He’s right here,” Margo soothes. “We’re back at Brakebills. How you feeling?”
“Scared,” Quentin supplies. “El.”
“Oh,” Eliot says. The confusion and fear die down. There’s still a little confusion, but it’s being overtaken by relief and love. Eliot settles down.
“…What was that?” Julia asks.
Eliot’s looking up at Margo, frowning. He’s sad her eye is gone. Quentin feels it in his own chest. “Eye,” Eliot mumbles.
“Long story,” Margo tells him. “I’ll tell you later.”
Quentin’s starting to get a bit of an idea what’s happening here. Not why, but—well, it sounds crazy. Absolutely crazy.
“Um,” he says.
“Um,” Eliot agrees. Quentin can feel guilt gnawing at him hard, guilt for letting the monster in. Guilt for what the monster did. And it’s Eliot’s guilt. He can feel Eliot’s pain, Eliot’s worry that Margo gave up her eye for him, Eliot’s bone-deep relief at being himself again.
Quentin can feel Eliot’s emotions.
He manages to turn his head a little so he can see Eliot’s eyes. They’re wide with the same shock Quentin can feel. But somehow he can tell which emotions are his own and which are Eliot’s. It’s like he’s split in half—on the left are his own feelings, and on the right are Eliot’s.
“Weird,” Quentin says again.
“What’s weird?” Julia asks. But Quentin’s strength is exhausted. His eyes fall closed again, and he feels Eliot following suit.
Margo muttering, “What the fuck?” is the last thing Quentin hears before he falls asleep.
“I can’t believe I have a scar,” Eliot gripes. “On my face. What an asshole monster. My beautiful face!”
“El,” Quentin says, head resting against Eliot’s chest. “You can’t pretend that’s what hurts the most right now.”
And he really can’t. They share emotions. Quentin can feel the choking guilt and revulsion, the feeling of violation, the fear every time he closes his eyes. It makes the part of his heart that still feels his own emotions hurt.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Eliot whispers, tightening his arms around Quentin.
“Okay,” Quentin acquiesces, because he can feel Eliot’s panic.
They don’t know, with complete certainty, exactly why they can feel each other’s emotions. But their best guess (Alice’s best guess, since she’s done the most research) is that somehow, in the process of binding and killing the monster, Eliot and Quentin’s shades…mingled.
It doesn’t feel mingled. It feels very much like someone cut the two shades in half and then sewed the wrong halves back together. Quentin could draw a line down his body that delineates his half and Eliot’s half. It’s the weirdest thing they’ve ever felt.
(“Too bad you don’t still have your fairy eye to check for sure,” Quentin had said to Margo when Alice posited this theory.
“That thing doesn’t actually see shades,” Margo said with a shrug. “But I trusted you. And I wasn’t going to let them kill him. Come on.”
Quentin had hugged her for a long time.)
“Oh, God,” Eliot says. “We have to have sex as soon as possible.”
“Well, I mean, okay,” Quentin says agreeably. “But did something bring this thought on?”
“You’re on top of me,” Eliot points out. “That brings it up.” He glances down at his lap mournfully. “Well, usually. But anyway. Think about it. We can feel each other’s emotions. Q, that’s going to be the hottest sex ever. Besides, you said you’d do anything I want, remember?”
“You heard that?” Quentin asks.
“Yeah,” Eliot says softly. He clears his throat. “So don’t try to back out now. You said you owe me, Coldwater.”
Quentin snorts. It’s going to be a long time before either of them are well enough to have sex, most likely. It’s been three days, and they’ve just barely managed to find the strength to speak full sentences. They’re recovering in Fillory, hustled through the clock portal while everyone was still juiced up on eyeball and toe magic. Everyone else is here, too, in hiding. They’re not completely safe from the Library here in Fillory, but it’s a lot safer with an entire royal guard on the lookout.
Quentin and Eliot are in the castle’s infirmary and haven’t moved. The healers are doing their best, but without magic in a pre-industrial world they’re basically left with rest and bathing. It seems to be working alright so far. And on the plus side, they get to share a big, comfortable bed.
Not that Eliot’s been sleeping. His nightmares wake them both up, since Quentin can feel his terror, too. He dreams every night that the monster is back, or the monster really killed Quentin or Margo or Fen. And even awake, Eliot’s different. He’s subdued. Quiet. Guilty. Quentin’s just doing his best to make sure Eliot knows it isn’t his fault.
“Okay,” Eliot huffs. “I get it. You don’t think it’s my fault. You don’t have to beat me over the head about it.”
Quentin laughs a little. “I’m not going to apologize.”
“Oh, I know you won’t. I don’t feel any apology in there at all.”
“Yeah?” Quentin says teasingly. “What do you feel?”
But Eliot doesn’t joke back. He presses his face into Quentin’s hair and breathes deep. “Love,” he says, voice breaking. And Quentin’s immediately in tears, too, chest filling up with love and self-loathing. Eliot doesn’t think he deserves it.
Quentin stretches up as best he can so he can kiss Eliot. “You do,” he murmurs.
“I don’t,” Eliot chokes.
Quentin sighs. “Well,” he says instead of insisting. “I love you anyway. Whether you deserve it or not. So there.”
Eliot laughs a little, tearfully. “I know you do.” He can’t argue it. Not when he can feel it. And Quentin doesn’t have to feel the least bit insecure about Eliot’s feelings. He can feel Eliot’s love flowing right back to him.
“It’s still pretty weird,” Quentin admits. “When we were old and we’d been together fifty years, I used to think I could feel your feelings, but this…” He blows out a breath.
“Seriously,” Eliot agrees. “It really doesn’t help that we both hate ourselves.”
Quentin groans. “I know.” He sighs again. “But you hate yourself and I love you, and I hate myself but you love me, so maybe it all balances out.”
Eliot laughs out loud. “Shade math.”
“You’re stuck with me now,” Quentin says quietly. Eliot had said that the first time Rupert called him Papa, toddling around after Eliot on his chubby little legs. He’d said it jokingly, but even Arielle had seen the insecurity hiding behind his laughter. She and Quentin had each kissed a cheek as they told him how glad they were for that.
Now, Quentin doesn’t need a kiss on the cheek. He feels Eliot’s heart leap at the words. He feels a little grief as Eliot mourns their old life. They’ll probably both always mourn it. It was such a good life. But they’ve got this one now, too. And Quentin can feel how happy Eliot is to be stuck with Quentin.
“I guess I can deal with that,” Eliot says, would-be nonchalant if not for how choked up he sounds. Quentin doesn’t laugh at him, because he’s a kind person.
Also, Eliot can already feel him laughing.
They settle down again. Quentin’s starting to fall into a doze when he feels a burst of incredulous hilarity from Eliot.
“I can’t believe you did Margo’s eye and Penny’s toe coke,” Eliot says. “That’s so disgusting.”
“Is it?” Quentin asks. “I thought you had a toe thing.”
Now Eliot’s indignant. “You know that isn’t true! That was one time when I was young and experimenting.”
Quentin can’t respond, because he’s laughing too hard. Laughing is, so far, one of the hardest parts of their intertwined shades. They can feel each other’s amusement, which amplifies each of their own amusement, and then they’re trapped in endless laughter loops until someone comes in and saves them. So far the only thing that ends the laughter loops is covering their faces with pillows, which is not an ideal long-term solution.
So they’re lying here, snuggled together, giggling together in a way that’s partially amusement but mostly relief that they’re alive and themselves and together, and then Quentin kind of wants to cry because he’s so glad they’re here. They both have to heal physically, and Eliot has a lot of healing to do mentally and emotionally. They have to figure out how to free Penny from the underworld, and then they have to figure out what to do about two Pennys from two timelines living in one timeline. They have to free magic from the clutches of the Library so it belongs to everyone again. So far, Quentin’s dad’s tumor isn’t back, but freeing magic fully could bring it back. They have to get the Library to stop hunting them. They have to kill Irene, most likely. They’ve been well enough to sit with everyone else and make plans for all of those things, but so far the plans aren’t amounting to much. They have no idea what they’re going to do. Everyone is frustrated and it’s all starting to feel familiarly hopeless.
But they all have their memories back. Eliot is Eliot again. Slowly, Julia is working her way back up to regaining her powers. Margo still had a stash of regal eye-patches she claims she actually kind of missed. Josh met a girl who also has lycanthropy and they’ve hit it off better than anyone else wants to know they did. Fen didn’t bat an eye when they explained about their shades, not even when Eliot mentioned them being together.
“It’s not like you and I were ever really in love love,” she’d pointed out, raising one eyebrow practically. It turns out she’d picked up her own boyfriend in the months they were all gone and she was alone taking care of Fillory. Fray even came to check in when she heard Eliot had been injured, with Humbledrum sending his regards from outside.
And they’re together. They’re lying here together, kissing whenever they want to. Quentin doesn’t have to worry about the state of their relationship. He doesn’t have to question his own feelings or Eliot’s. He should be more worried about the future. He should be scared. He should be hopeless. But he’s not. Not right now.
He’s happy.
Eliot holds him tighter. “Me too,” he whispers, and Quentin can feel it in his chest. They are lucky to be alive, and they’re lucky to be here together. They’ll figure the rest of it out. It may end horribly, as so many things in their life seem to. But Quentin doesn’t stress about it right now. He stretches up and kisses Eliot, and he lets himself lie still and just be. He’s Quentin again. He knows who he is. And for once, at least just for right now, he feels lucky to be himself.