“That was no witch, that was her mother.” More hissing laughter. Only its lower jaw moved when it talked. It was like talking to an animatronic president at a theme park. “I left them to look for the Seven Keys. I suppose I wanted to be a hero. They never forgave me for it. When I finally came back my own daughter didn’t know me. Her mother told her I was dead.

“The key kept me alive. It’s just as well, your taking it like this. It’s terrible living in a dead body, I can’t feel anything. You should see how the others look at me.”

Quentin opened the wooden box. A golden key lay inside it. He was part of the fairy tale now, he supposed. He’d crashed through a shared wall into an adjoining story. Enter the Magician King.

“Just tell me,” the corpse said. “What is it for? I never knew.”

“I don’t know either. I’m sorry.”

Footsteps behind him. Quentin risked a glance back. Just Bingle, catching up at last.

“Don’t be sorry. You’ve paid for it. You paid the price.” The life had started going out of it as soon as it let go of the box. It slumped forward, and its head hit the table with a bang. It muttered the last words directly into the wooden desktop. “Like me. You just don’t know it yet.”

It didn’t move again.

Quentin snapped the box shut. He heard Bingle walk in beside him. Together they stared at the dome of the corpse’s head, which was as bald and mottled and seamed as a globe.

“Well done,” Bingle said.

“I don’t think I killed him,” Quentin said. “I think he just died.”

“It is all good.” He must have picked that up from Josh.

Quentin’s crazy power levels were dropping rapidly toward normal again, leaving him feeling wrung out and shaky. He was vaguely aware that he was giving off a nasty burnt-hair smell. The fireproofing hadn’t been perfect.

“It was that man,” Quentin said. “The one from the fairy tale. But his version was different. How did you know to come get me?”

“The cook caught a talking fish. It told us what to do. It had a bottle in its belly, with a map inside. What happened to you?”

“Ember came.”

That was enough explanation for now. Together they walked back down the hall toward the stairs, Bingle eyeing every doorway and alcove for holdouts and dead-enders.