They’d done it: another key found. One to go. Quentin was on the scoreboard. They met a chattering Poppy, flush with her first Fillorian outing—“We did it!”—and a silent, still-fluorescent Julia wandering the halls. Quentin showed them the prize and hugged them both, Julia a bit awkwardly, since she didn’t really hug him back, and moreover had retained the extra height from her battle form. Poppy was right, they had done it, and Quentin had led the way. He held on to that victorious feeling, weighed it in his hands, felt its warmth and its heft, making sure he would always remember it. Bingle rooted a straggler out from behind a curtain, but he’d already laid down his weapons. He didn’t have a lot of fancy ideas about dying for lost causes.

Outside the Muntjac had drawn right up to the wharf—it loomed up abruptly over the stone square. The bay must have been deeper than it looked. Somebody—Eliot, probably—had conjured some floating lights, basketball-sized globes that hovered over the courtyard, bathing it in soft yellow-rosy illumination and giving it a country-fair atmosphere. The wind had picked up even more, and the glowing spheres trembled and bobbed as they tried to stay in position.

And there was Eliot, standing with Josh out on the pier, with the great comforting bulk of the Muntjac behind them. Why were they just standing there? The high was all gone now, and Quentin’s knees were weak. It was tiring work, being a hero. He felt hollowed out, a limp empty skin of himself. The ache in his side was getting hot again. The thought of his cozy shipboard berth was crushingly comforting. Now that they had the key he could curl up in it and the great beast would bear him away. He raised a weary hand in greeting. There would be talking now, and explanations, and congratulations—the hero’s welcome—but for now he just wanted to get past them and back aboard.

Eliot and Josh didn’t greet him. Their faces were grave. They were looking down at something on the pier. Josh spoke, but the wind snatched his words away, spirited them off and out over the black ocean. They were both waiting for Quentin to notice Benedict lying there on the rough wet wood.

There was an arrow through his throat. He was dead. He’d barely made it off the boat. He lay curled around himself, and his face was dark. He hadn’t died right away. It looked like he’d clawed at the arrow for a while first, before he finally choked on his own blood.

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 20

The house at Murs was the best thing that had ever happened to Julia in her entire life. In any of her entire lives.