Good for Eleanor, Quentin thought. She was getting off the Outer Island. She would be all right.
“Imagine that,” he said. “When she’s old enough for college, drop me a line. I might be able to recommend one.”
It was time to go.
The sea was no longer empty. Something was coming toward them across it: it was Ember, late as usual, trotting neatly across the skim of water. Wouldn’t be like Him to miss a good dethroning.
“So,” Quentin said. “Back to the Muntjac? Or?” Maybe the magic sheep would be good for a ride home. He really did hope so. Ember took His place by Eliot’s side.
“Not for you, Quentin,” He said.
And then Eliot did something Quentin had never seen him do before, even after everything they’d been through together. He sobbed. He turned away and walked a few steps down the beach with his back to them, arms crossed, head down.
“It is a dark day for Fillory,” Ember said, “but you will always be remembered here. And all good things must come to an end.”
“Wait a minute.”
Quentin recognized this little speech. It was the canned farewell that Ember delivered in the books, every time He did what He did best, which was to kick visitors out of Fillory at the end.
“I don’t understand. Look, enough is enough.”
“Yes, Quentin, enough is enough. It is exactly that.”
“I’m sorry, Quentin.” Eliot couldn’t look at him. He took a rattling breath. “There’s nothing I can do. It’s always been the rule.”
Fortunately Eliot had a gorgeous embroidered handkerchief to blot his eyes with. He’d probably never had to use it before.
“For God’s sake!” Quentin might as well get angry, there was nothing else left to do. “You can’t send me back to Earth, I live here now! I’m not some schoolkid who has to get back in time for curfew or fifth form or whatever, I’m a fucking grown-up. This is my home! I’m not from Earth anymore, I’m a Fillorian!”
Ember’s face was impassive beneath His massive stony horns. They curled back from His woolly forehead, ribbed like ancient seashells.
“No.”
“This isn’t how it ends!” Quentin said. “I am the hero of this goddamned story, Ember! Remember? And the hero gets the reward!”
“No, Quentin,” the ram said. “The hero pays the price.”
Eliot put a hand on Quentin’s shoulder.
“You know what they say,” Eliot said. “Once a king in Fillory, always—”
“Save it.” Quentin shook him off. “Save it. That’s bullshit and you know it.”
He sighed. “I guess I do.”
Eliot had himself back under control now. He held something out, small and pearly, pinched in his handkerchief.
“It’s a magic button. Ember brought it. It will take you to the Neitherlands. You can travel back to Earth from there, or wherever you want to go. It just won’t take you back here.”
“I can hook you up, Quentin!” Josh said, trying to sound cheerful. “Seriously, I practically own the Neitherlands now. You want Teletubbies? I’ll draw you a map!”
“Oh, forget it.” He still felt angry. “Come on. Let’s go back to our home fucking planet.”
It was all over. He always hated these parts, even when they were just stories, even when they weren’t about him. He would think about the future soon. It wouldn’t be that bad. He and Josh could live in Venice. And Poppy. It wouldn’t be bad at all. It was just that he felt like he’d just had a limb severed, and he was looking down at the stump waiting to start bleeding to death.
“We aren’t coming, Quentin,” Poppy said. She was standing by Eliot.
“We’re staying,” Josh said. Even in the cold and the darkness, Quentin could see him blushing furiously. “We’re not going back.”
“Oh, Quentin!” He’d never seen Poppy look so upset, not even when they were freezing to death. “We can’t go! Fillory needs us. With you and Julia gone there are two empty thrones. One king, one queen. We have to take them.”
Of course. A king and a queen. King Josh. Queen Poppy. Long live. He was going back alone.
This, now, this stopped him. He’d known that adventures were supposed to be hard. He’d understood that he would have to go a long way and solve difficult problems and fight foes and be brave and whatever else. But this was hard in a way he hadn’t counted on. You couldn’t kill it with a sword or fix it with a spell. You couldn’t fight it. You just had to endure it, and you didn’t look good or noble or heroic doing it. You were just the guy people felt sorry for, that was all. It didn’t make a good story—in fact he saw now that the stories had it all wrong, about what you got, and what you gave. It’s not that he wasn’t willing. He just hadn’t understood. He wasn’t ready for it.
“I feel like an asshole, Quentin,” Josh said.
“No, listen, you’re totally right.” Quentin’s lips were numb. He kept talking. “I should have thought of it. Listen, you’re going to love it.”
“You can have the palazzo.”
“Great, man, thanks, that’ll be great.”
“I’m sorry, Quentin!” Poppy threw her arms around him. “I had to say yes!”
“It’s okay! Jesus!”
You didn’t want to be a grown man saying come on, it isn’t fair. But it didn’t feel all that fair.
“It is time,” Ember said, standing there on His stupid little ballerina hoofs.
“Listen, we have to do this now,” Eliot said. His face was white. This was costing him too.
“Fine. Okay. Give me the button.”
Josh hugged him fiercely, and then Poppy. She kissed him too, but he could hardly feel it. He knew he would be sorry later, but it was just too much. He had to do this right now or he was going to implode.
“I’ll miss you,” he said. “Be a good queen.”
“I have something for you,” Eliot said. “I was saving it for when this was all over, but . . . well, I guess it’s all over.”
From inside his jacket Eliot brought out a silver pocket watch. Quentin would have known it anywhere: it was from the little clock-tree that had been growing in the magic clearing in the Queenswood, where all this began. Eliot must have harvested it when he went back there. It ticked away merrily, as if it were happy to see him again.
He put it in his pocket. He wasn’t in the mood for merriness. Too bad it wasn’t a gold watch: the classic retirement present.
“Thank you. It’s beautiful.” It was.
The huge horned moon of Fillory was up now, clearing the wall at the edge of the world with its nightly leap. It didn’t rumble, like the sun, but this close it rang faintly, like a struck tuning fork. Quentin looked at it long and hard. Probably he would never see it again.
Then Eliot hugged him, a long hug, and when he was done he kissed Quentin on the mouth. That Quentin felt.
“Sorry,” Eliot said. “But you were kissing everybody else.”
He held out the button. Quentin’s hand shook. Even as he took it, almost before he touched it, he was floating up through cold water.
It had always been cold, going to the Neitherlands, but he never remembered it being this cold. The water burned against his skin—it was Antarctic cold, like when he’d had to run to the South Pole from Brakebills South, years ago. The wound in his side ached. Hot tears leaked out from under his eyelids and mingled with the frigid water. For a long second he hung there, weightless. It felt like he was motionless, but he must have been rising up through the water because with no warning something rough clonked him on the top of his head, hard enough that he saw silver sparkles.
Insult to injury: the fountain was frozen over. Quentin groped frantically at the ice above him, almost losing the button in the process. Nobody thought of this? Could you drown in magic water? Then his fingers found an edge. They’d cut a hole in the ice, he’d just missed it.
The hole was frozen over too, but only lightly. He cracked it satisfyingly with his fist. It was good to punch something and feel it break. He wanted to break it again. He wriggled up and out—he had to sprawl awkwardly on the slick ice with his upper body, like a seal, and then grab the stone rim of the basin and pull himself the rest of the way out of the hole. He lay there for a minute, gasping and shivering.
For a second he’d forgotten everything that had just happened. Nothing like a brush with death to take your mind off your troubles. The magic water was already evaporating. His hair was dry before his feet were even out of the water.
He was alone. The stone square was silent. He felt dizzy, and not just because he’d hit his head. It was all crashing in on him now. He’d thought he’d known what his future looked like, but he’d been mistaken. His life would be something else now. He was starting over, only he didn’t think he had the strength to start over. He didn’t know if he could stand up.
Feeling like an old man, he boosted himself down off the edge of the fountain and leaned back against it. He’d always liked the Neitherlands—there was something comforting about their in-between-ness. They were nowhere, and as such they relieved you of the burden of being anywhere in particular. They were a good place to be miserable in. Though God help him, Penny would probably come floating by in a minute.
The Neitherlands had changed since he and Poppy had been there last. The buildings were still broken, and there was still a little snow in the corners of the square, in the shadows, but it wasn’t coming down anymore. It wasn’t freezing. Magic really was flowing again: you could see it here. The ruins were coming back to life.
Though they weren’t going back to normal. A warm breeze blew. He’d never felt that in the Neitherlands before. They’d always been asleep, but now they were waking up.
Quentin felt ruined too. He had that in common with the Neitherlands. He felt like a frozen tundra where nothing grew and nothing would ever grow again. He had finished his quest, and it had cost him everything and everyone he’d done it for. The equation balanced perfectly: all canceled out. And without his crown, or his throne, or Fillory, or even his friends, he had no idea who he was.
But something had changed inside him too. He didn’t understand it yet, but he felt it. Somehow, even though he’d lost everything, he felt more like a king now than he ever did when he was one. Not like a toy king. He felt real. He waved to the empty square the way he used to wave to the people from the balcony in Fillory.
Overhead the clouds were breaking apart. He could see a pale sky, and the sun was pushing through. He hadn’t even known there was a sun here. The silver watch Eliot gave him was ticking along in an inside pocket of his best topcoat, the one with the seed pearls and the silver thread, like a cat purring, or a second heart. The air was chilly but it was warming up, and the ground was littered with puddles of meltwater. Stubborn green shoots were forcing themselves up between the paving stones, cracking the old rock, in spite of everything.