“Hi!”

They all looked around.

“Hi!” It was what Fillorians said instead of “hey.”

The Fillorian saying it was a hale, vigorous man in his early thirties. He was striding toward them, right across the circular clearing, practically radiating exuberance. He broke into a jog at the sight of them. He totally ignored the branches of the broken clock-tree that were waving wildly over his head; he couldn’t have cared less. Just another day in the magic forest. He had a big blond mane and a big chest, and he’d grown a big blond beard to cover up his somewhat moony round chin.

It was Jollyby, Master of the Hunt. He wore purple-and-yellow striped tights. His legs really were pretty impressive, especially considering that he’d never even been in the same universe as a leg press or a StairMaster or whatever. Eliot was right, he must have been following them the whole time.

“Hi!” Janet shouted back happily. “Now it’s a party,” she added to the others, sotto voce.

In one huge leather-gloved fist Jollyby held up a large, madly kicking hare by its ears.

“Son of a bitch,” Dauntless said. “He caught it.”

Dauntless was a talking horse. She just didn’t talk much.

“He sure did,” Quentin said.

“Lucky thing,” Jollyby called out when he was close enough. “I found him sitting up on a rock, happy as you please, not a hundred yards from here. He was busy keeping an eye on you lot, and I got him to bolt the wrong way. Caught him with my bare hands. Would you believe it?”

Quentin would believe it. Though he still didn’t think it made sense. How do you sneak up on an animal that can see the future? Maybe it saw other people’s but not its own. The hare’s eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.

“Poor thing,” Eliot said. “Look how pissed off it is.”

“Oh, Jolly,” Janet said. She crossed her arms in mock outrage. “You should have let us catch it! Now it’ll only tell your future.”

She sounded not at all disappointed by this, but Jollyby—a superb all-around huntsman but no National Merit Scholar—looked vexed. His furry brows furrowed.

“Maybe we could pass it around,” Quentin said. “It could do each of us in turn.”

“It’s not a bong, Quentin,” Janet said.

“No,” Julia said. “Do not ask it.”

But Jollyby was enjoying his moment as the center of royal attention.

“Is that true, you useless animal?” he said. He reversed his grip on the Seeing Hare and hoisted it up so that he and the hare were nose to nose.

It gave up kicking and hung down limp, its eyes blank with panic. It was an impressive beast, three feet long from its twitching nose to its tail, with a fine gray-brown coat the color of dry grass in winter. It wasn’t cute. This was not a tame hare, a magician’s rabbit. It was a wild animal.

“What do you see then, eh?” Jollyby shook it, as if this were all its idea and therefore its fault. “What do you see?”