Nobody noticed a large—ten-feet-long large—green lizard standing frozen amid the remains of shattered tables and benches until it abruptly unfroze and skittered off into the shadows, claws skritching on the stone floor. The horror was almost pleasant: it wiped away Alice and Janet and everything else except itself, like a harsh, abrasive cleanser.
They wandered from room to empty room, down echoing stone hallways. The floor plan was beyond chaotic. The stonework changed styles and patterns every twenty minutes as a new generation of masons took over. They took turns putting light spells on their knives, their hands, various inappropriate body parts in an effort to break the tension.
Having tasted blood, Anaïs now tagged after Dint and Fen like an eager puppy, lapping up whatever observations she could get out of them about personal combat.
“They never had a chance,” Fen said, with professional disinterest. “Even if Dint hadn’t taken the second one, even if I had been alone, the quarterstaff is not a collaborative weapon. It simply takes up too much room. Once the tall one is into a form, those tips are flying left and right, up and down. He can’t afford to worry about his friend. You face them one-on-one, and you move on.
“They should have fallen back, waited for us together in that big chamber. Taken us by surprise.”
Anaïs nodded, obviously fascinated.
“Why didn’t they?” she asked. “Why did they come running straight at us?”
“I don’t know.” Fen frowned. “Could’ve been an honor thing. Could’ve been a bluff, they thought we’d run. Could be they were under a spell, they couldn’t help it.”
“Did we have to kill them?” Quentin burst out. “Couldn’t we have just, I don’t know—”
“What?” Anaïs turned on him, sneering. “Maybe we could have taken them prisoner? We could have rehabilitated them?”
“I don’t know!” he said helplessly. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. “Tied them up? Look, I guess I just wasn’t that clear on what it would actually be like. Killing people.”
It made him think of the day the Beast appeared—that same bottomless feeling, all bets off, like the cable had snapped and they were in free fall.
“Those are not people,” Anaïs said. “Those were not people. And they tried to kill us first.”
“We were breaking into their home.”
“Glory has its price,” Penny said. “Did you not know that, before you sought it?”
“Well, I guess they paid the price for us, huh?”
To Quentin’s surprise Eliot rounded on him, too.
“What, you’re going to back out? You?” Eliot laughed a bitter, barking laugh. “You need this almost as badly as I do.”
“I’m not backing out! I’m just saying!”
Quentin had time to wonder why exactly Eliot did need this before Anaïs cut them off.
“Oh, God. Please, can we not?” She shook her curly head in disgust. “Can we all just not?”
Four hours and three flights of stairs and one mile of empty corridor later Quentin was examining a door when it opened suddenly, hard, smacking him in the face. He took a step backward and put a hand to his upper lip. In his half-stunned state he was more preoccupied with whether or not his nose was bleeding than with who or what had just slammed the door into it. He raised the back of his hand to his upper lip, checked it, raised it again, then checked it again. Yep, definitely bleeding.
An elfin being stuck its narrow, angry face around the edge of the door and glared at him. Purely by reflex Quentin kicked it shut.
He’d been about to point out the door to the others, who were busy surveying a wide, low-ceilinged room with a dry basin in the center. A creeping ivy-like plant had grown out of the basin and halfway up the walls and then died. Daylight was a months-ago memory. There were twinkly lights going off behind Quentin’s eyes, and his nose felt like a warm, melting gob of something salty and throbbing. With melodramatic slowness the door creaked open again, gradually revealing a slight, pointy-featured man wearing black leather armor. He didn’t look particularly surprised to see Quentin. The man, elf, whatever, whipped a rapier out of his belt and snapped into a formal fencing stance. Quentin backed away, gritting his teeth with fear and resignation. Just like that, Fillory had vomited out another one of its malignant menagerie.
Maybe fatigue had dulled the edge of his fear, but almost unbeknownst to himself Quentin was enunciating the words to Penny’s Magic Missile spell. He’d practiced it back in New York, and now he backpedaled as he cast it because the Black Elf—as Quentin tagged him—was advancing on him using a poncey sideways fencing shuffle, his free hand held aloft, wrist limp. Quentin was getting the spell right, he could feel it, and he was loving himself for getting it right. Terror and physical pain sharpened and simplified Quentin’s moral universe. He snapped the magical darts straight into the elf’s chest.
