He backhanded the silver bowl off the table and it clanged against the wall. A slip of paper fluttered out of it. Against his better judgment Quentin glanced at it. There were spells you could set off just by reading them. The paper had the words I.O.U. ONE MAGIC BUTTON written on it in crude magic marker.

The door opened behind them, and Quentin scrambled to get them both behind the table.

“Oh, shit! He looked in the bowl!”

The voice was a lot lower than the one that had been speaking before. It was a voice Quentin knew well. It belonged to Josh.

Quentin hugged him.

“Jesus!” he said into Josh’s broad, comforting shoulder. “What the hell, man?”

He didn’t understand how it was even possible that Josh was here, but it didn’t matter. Probably it would, but not yet. He didn’t even care that Josh had messed with their heads. What mattered now was that they weren’t going to have a new disaster. They weren’t going to have a fight. Quentin’s knees were shaking. It was like he’d sailed so far from the safe, orderly world he knew that he was coming back around the other way, from the other side, and there was Josh: an island of warmth and familiarity.

Josh disengaged himself tactfully.

“So,” he said, “welcome to the suck, man!”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Me? This is my house! What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in Fillory?”

He was the same Josh: round-faced, overweight, grinning. He looked like a beer-brewing abbot, not visibly older than the last time Quentin had seen him, which was more than three years now. Josh carefully closed the door behind him.

“Can’t be too careful,” he said. “Got an image to protect. Kind of a Wizard of Oz thing going on, if you see what I mean.”

“What’s with the bowl?”

“Eh, I didn’t have a lot of time. I just thought it was creepy. You know. ‘Look in the bowl . . . look in the bowl . . .’ ” He did the voice.

“Josh, Julia. You guys know each other.”

They’d met once before, in the chaotic run-up before the great return to Fillory, before Josh had set off into the Neitherlands on his own.

“Hi, Julia.” Josh kissed her on both cheeks. He must really have gone Euro over here.

“Hi.”

Josh waggled both eyebrows at Quentin lewdly in a way that didn’t seem like it should be physically possible. It was starting to sink in for Quentin just what a colossal stroke of luck this was. Josh would have the magic button. He was their ticket back to Fillory. Their wandering days were over.

“So listen,” he said. “We’ve got some problems.”

“Yeah, you must if you came here.”

“We don’t even really know where here is.”