“Right.”
“She practically took off in the middle of it. Feathers going everywhere. Way more trouble than it was worth. I still have a scar from where she clawed me. I can—”
“I don’t want to see it.”
Josh sighed. All the humor had drained out of his face, leaving it gray under the stubble. Now Quentin saw those years that he’d missed before.
“I mean, all I was looking for basically was some kind of Y: The Last Man setup, right? Where I was the only dude in a world of chicks. I know it’s out there. They could even all have been lesbians, and I would just watch. I’d be good with whatever.
“Anyway after that I started just sliding through worlds. Worlds worlds worlds. I stopped caring. It was like when you’ve surfed too much porn on the Web and none of it seems real but you keep going anyway. I’d get to a world and immediately start looking for any excuse to quit and go on to the next one. As soon as I’d see one wrong thing—oh, this one has flies, or the sky is a weird color, or no beer, anything that wasn’t perfect—I’d bail.
“Then one of those times I came back and the whole Neitherlands was busted.”
“What? How do you mean, busted?”
“Broken. Fucked up. Do you know about this? If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
He drained his wineglass. A man came to refill it, and Josh waved him off. “Whiskey,” he said.
He went on.
“At first I thought it was me, I must have broken it. I used it too much, something like that. When my head broke the water that last time it was like the cold punched me in the face. The air was freezing, and the wind was just whipping this dry powdery snow through the squares.”
“How is that even possible?” Quentin said. “I didn’t think the Neitherlands even had weather.”
It made him think of that silent storm, the one that had thrashed the clock-tree back in Fillory. Maybe it was the same wind?
“Something’s deeply messed up there, Quentin. Something’s wrong, something basic. Like systemic. Half the buildings were in ruins. It looked like the place had been bombed. All those beautiful stone buildings just laid open to the sky. Do you remember how Penny said once that they were all full of books? I think he was right, because the air was full of pages, blowing along through the city.”
Josh shook his head.
“I guess I should have grabbed a few, to see what was on them. You would have. I never even thought of it till after.
“You know what I was thinking about? Not dying. I was pretty far from the Earth fountain at that point, a mile maybe. I’d brought warm clothes, but I ditched them when I met the harpy. It was hot as hell there. And she kinda tore at my clothes a lot of the time anyway.
“So I was practically naked, and a lot of my landmarks were gone. A lot of the fountains were gone too. Some of them were leveled, some of them were frozen. You know how you can’t really do magic there? A couple of times I just squatted down in a corner. I thought maybe I’d wait out the storm, but really I just wanted to go to sleep. I didn’t think I could go on. I could have died, easily. I was out there for about half an hour. It’s a miracle I found the Earth fountain at all. I really thought I wouldn’t make it.”
“It’s incredible that you did.” Good old Josh. Just when you were ready to write him off he kicked into gear, and when he did he really was indomitable. Like that time in Fillory, when he’d beaten the red-hot giant with his black hole spell. He’d probably outlive them all.
“I keep trying to figure it out,” Josh said. “It was like somebody’d attacked the Neitherlands, or cursed it, except who could do that? I didn’t see anybody there. It was just as empty as it always was. I thought maybe—I know it’s silly—I thought maybe I’d see Penny.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, not that I wanted to. I couldn’t stand that guy. But it’d be nice to know he’s not dead.”
“Yeah. It would.”
Quentin was already trying to calculate whether this meant he and Julia couldn’t get back to Fillory through the Neitherlands. It was still possible, in theory. They’d just suit up for cold weather. Bring an ice ax.
“I always thought the Neitherlands were invulnerable,” Quentin said. “They felt like they were outside time, I didn’t think they ever changed. But it sounds like an earthquake hit them, an earthquake and a blizzard at the same time.”
“I know, right? What are the odds?”
“I don’t suppose you noticed whether the Fillory fountain was still there?” Quentin said. “I thought maybe we’d go back that way. Back to Fillory.”
“No. So you are going back? I didn’t exactly pop in while I was passing through. But listen, I don’t know if you can go back that way anyway.”
“Why not? I realize the Neitherlands is a disaster area, but it’s worth a try. You got back to Earth. You seem pretty settled here. We’ll just borrow the button and be on our way.”
“Yeah, see, that’s the thing.”
Josh didn’t meet Quentin’s eyes. He studied a painting hanging on the flaking wall behind Quentin as if he’d never seen it before.
“What?”
“I don’t have the button anymore.”
“You don’t—?”
“Yeah. I sold it. I didn’t realize you still wanted it.”
Quentin could not be hearing this.
“You didn’t. Tell me you did not do that.”
“I totally did!” Josh said, indignant. “How the hell do you think I could afford a fucking Venetian palazzo?”
CHAPTER 14
The old wood of Josh’s dining room table felt cool against Quentin’s forehead. In a few more seconds he’d sit up again. That’s how long it would take to roll his brain back to the state it was in before it thought that their troubles were over. Until that happened Quentin would just enjoy the cool solidity of the table for a second more. He let the despair wash over him. The button was gone. He thought about banging his head a few times, just lightly, but that would have been overdoing it.
He was aware for the first time of how quiet the city had gotten. After dark the streets and canals seemed to empty out. As if Venice felt less of an obligation to pretend to be part of this millennium at night, and had reverted to its medieval self again.
All right. He sat up. The blood drained back out of his face. Back to work.
“Okay. You sold the button.”
“Look, you must have had some other plan,” Josh said. “I mean, don’t tell me you were actually planning on randomly running into me in Venice and bumming the button off me. That’s not a plan.”
“Well, no,” Quentin said, “it’s not a plan. The plan was not to get booted out of Fillory, but that ship has sailed, so I’m working on a new plan. Who the hell did you sell the button to?”
“Well, that’s a story too!” Josh launched straight into the tale, untroubled by any further self-reproach. If Quentin had moved on then so could he, and this was obviously a much happier story than the one about his sojourn in the Neitherlands. “See, I realized I was through with that button. I was done with the Neitherlands and Fillory and all that stuff. If I was going to get laid—and I was—I was going to get laid right here in the real world. So I looked around for something to do on Earth, and I started picking up on this underground scene. The safe houses, all that stuff. Have you heard about that?”
“Julia’s been catching me up.”
“I mean, I always knew there were hedge witches out there, a few of them, but this thing goes deep, man. I had no idea. There are a lot of those guys. And a lot of them come through Venice—they figure it’s really old, so, hey, magic. They think maybe they’ll pick something up. It’s kinda sad, really. Some of them are the business, they’ve figured out a lot of what we know, and some stuff we don’t, but most of them have no idea what they’re doing, and they’re desperate. They’ll try anything.
“You gotta watch yourself around the desperate ones. They don’t kn
ow enough to be dangerous, most of them, but they attract scavengers. Fairies and demons and whatever. Fucking jackals. That’s where you get problems. The predators don’t mess around with us because we’re too much trouble, but those poor bastards, the hedge magicians, they want power and they’ll do anything to get it. I’ve heard of them striking some pretty bad bargains.
“But you know what? I like them. You know I never fit in that well at Brakebills. That whole fake Oxford thing, with the wine tasting and the fancy dress and all that—that was always more your scene, you and Eliot. And, and Janet.” He almost mentioned Alice but swerved away at the last second. “And it was great, don’t get me wrong. But it’s just not my style.
“I get along better with the underground people. People thought I was a joke at Brakebills, but here I’m a big wheel. I guess I just got tired of being the bottom of the food chain. Nobody really appreciated me there—no, not even you, Quentin. Not really. But here I’m like the king.”
Quentin could have denied it—but no, he couldn’t really. It was true. Everybody loved Josh, but nobody took him seriously. He’d allowed himself to think that it was because Josh didn’t want to be taken seriously, but that wasn’t true at all, of Josh or probably of anybody. Everybody wanted to be the hero of their own story. Nobody wanted to be comic relief. Josh had probably been carrying that around as long as Quentin had known him. No wonder he gave them a hard time in that room with the bowl.
“So is that why you sold the button? Because you felt like we didn’t take you seriously?”
Josh looked wounded. “I sold the button because I got offered a fuckload of money for it. But would that have been a bad reason? Look, I had a little anger to deal with. They treat me with respect here. I never knew what that was like before. I’m the bridge between the two worlds. There’s things you can’t get in the underground that I know how to find and vice versa. So people come to me with problems from both sides.
“It’s actually pretty wild. The underground scene has shit we never could have gotten our hands on, and they don’t even know it. They have these sad little swap meets, and then something really legendary turns up, totally at random, and they don’t even recognize it. One time I found a Cherenkov sphere. Nobody knew what it was, I had to show them how to hold it.”
“So what about the button? Did you sell that at a swap meet?”
“Aha, yeah, you might well ask that,” Josh said, unfazed. “That was more of a special transaction. A one-off. High-status client.”
“Yeah, I bet. Maybe you could put me in touch with your high-status client. Maybe he’ll want to have a special transaction with me too.”
“No harm in trying, but I can’t say I love your chances.” Josh was grinning like a lunatic. There was obviously a secret there that he was dying to blow.
“Tell me.”
“Okay!” Josh held up his hands, setting the scene. “So. After I get back from the Neitherlands I’m knocking around New York, just enjoying that I still have all my extremities, when I get a call on my cell from this guy, he says meet me tomorrow in Venice. Business to discuss, confidential matter, whatever. I’m like fine, I guess, but I’m kinda short on cash, so how’s that going to work. I’m just walking along the sidewalk having this conversation. And even as I’m saying it this Bentley slides up next to me, and the door opens. Like an idiot I get in, and we’re off to LaGuardia where there’s a private jet waiting. I mean, how does he even know where I am? How does he know I don’t have something important going on that day?”
“Yeah, how would he have ever guessed that.” Old habits die hard. Josh didn’t catch the irony anyway.
“I know, right?” Clean miss. “Plus there’s an overnight bag for me with all these clothes and things in it. Really nice clothes that fit me. And that toothpaste that costs like seven dollars.
“Anyway, I’m supposed to meet the guy on such and such a dock at such and such a time, so I basically do, though the day when good old-fashioned green-and-white American street signs come to this continent will be a merry fuckin’ occasion, let me just say. A guy pulls up to the dock in this fancy-pants launch. Not one of your usual Venice craporetto fart-buckets. This thing is sleek. It’s like a giant knife made out of wood. Totally soundless. It glides up to the dock, this guy jumps out. He doesn’t even tie up, the boat just waits for him.
“And he’s a midget. Little person—sorry, little person. But way highend little person. He’s so well dressed you don’t even notice he’s a little person. He’s from this old Venetian family, a marchese of whatever whatever. It takes him about an hour just to say his name.
“But after that things go pretty quick. He says he represents somebody who wants to buy the button. I don’t even know how they know about it, but I say who is it. He’s all, I can’t say. I say, how much, and he’s all: one hundred million dollars. And I’m all: two hundred million. Fifty. Two hundred fifty million.
“Right? Check that out! And I want to know who the buyer is. Right? Now who wasted his childhood watching like a million hours of TV? That shit is practically second nature to me.
“So the midget takes out an envelope and inside the envelope is a cashier’s check for two hundred and fifty million. It’s like he knew what I was going to say. And I’m all, and? And he waves me over with his little stubby fingers. I figured he was going to whisper something in my ear, so I stop and bend down, and he’s all, no, and he keeps waving me right up to the edge of the dock, and then he points down into the water. And this face looms up at me.
“It just comes floating up toward the surface of the water. It’s enormous—it looks like the front of a truck coming up at me. I practically shit my pants.”
“What was it?”
“It was a dragon. There’s a dragon that lives in the Grand Canal! That’s who bought the button.”
Quentin knew about dragons, at least in theory. There weren’t many of them, and they mostly lived in rivers, one to a river—they were highly territorial. They hardly ever came out or spoke to anyone. They hardly ever did anything at all, just dreamed away the lifetime of the planet in secret fluvial oblivion. Except one of them had woken up long enough to talk to an aristocratic little person, apparently. And it had bestirred itself to show its face to Josh, and to buy his—their—magic button for two hundred fifty million dollars.
“So we go to the bank, we verify that the check is valid, then we walk back to the dock. I take out the button and hand it to the little guy, who’s put on one white glove, Michael Jackson–style. He looks at the button through a jeweler’s loupe, then he walks to the edge and chucks it in the water. Just like that. Then he gets in his launch and drives away.”
“That is pretty astonishing,” Quentin said. It was hard to even be mad about it. Though not impossible.
“Can you believe a dragon bought our button?” Josh said. “He knows who we are! Or who I am anyway. I don’t even think people knew there was a dragon in the Grand Canal. I mean, it’s salt water. You know that, right? It’s not actually a river, it’s a tidal estuary or whatever. I don’t think people know about saltwater dragons!”
“Josh, how would I go about getting in touch with that dragon?”
That brought him up short.
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t think you can.”
“You did.”
“He got in touch with me.”
“Well, how would you try?”
Josh heaved an exasperated sigh.
“All right, there is this one girl I know who knows a lot about dragons. I guess I’d ask her.”
“Okay, good. Listen. This is what’s going to happen.” Quentin focused his will on Josh. Now hear this. He met Josh’s gaze and held it. “All due respect to your being king here, but Julia and I are king and queen of Fillory, and we have to get back there. For all intents and purposes we are on a fucking quest here. You are now on the quest team too. I am deputizing you. We have to get back to Fillory, and we don’t know how we’re go
ing to do it. That’s the problem.”
Josh considered.
“That’s a big problem.”
“Yeah, and you’re the big fixer. Right? So let’s fix it.”
He’d give Josh this: maybe he blew their only chance to get back to the secret magical land where Quentin was a king, but he bought a very nice palazzo with the money. It was a glorious, grotesque heap of fifteenth-century marble. The façade on the canal side was white, with its own tidy little dock out front. The interior teemed with curly plasterwork ornaments. Old oil paintings clung to the walls like lichen. Josh had accidentally acquired a minor Canaletto when he bought the place.
It was a serious palace, and it must have taken serious work to get it back on its feet. Josh had replumbed it and rewired it and put in a restaurant-caliber kitchen and done some work below the waterline, shoring up the foundations to keep the whole thing from slumping forward into the canal. He’d done it carefully, too, so that you wouldn’t know the place had been touched until you turned on the shower.
And all it had cost was $25 million, plus $10 million more for the renovation. Not that Quentin was a math genius or anything, but he figured that that left Josh with a pretty tidy nest egg. No doubt it would be a great comfort to him during his golden years.
It was all a reminder that Josh had a capable and determined side that really did deserve respect, even though for his own private reasons he worked hard to keep that side hidden most of the time. Now that Quentin looked, really looked, something had changed about Josh. He was more confident. He stood differently. He’d lost weight in the Neitherlands, and he’d kept it off. People changed. Time didn’t stand still for you, while you lounged around on cushions in Fillory.
And he could learn something from Josh. Here was somebody who was having a good time. He was doing what he wanted and enjoying himself. He’d been through everything Quentin had been through: he lost the girl he loved, and he nearly died. He didn’t sit around moaning and philosophizing about it. He bounced back and set himself up in a palazzo.