So Quentin, the Magician King, leader of men, helped corral the rest of the defeated soldiers and got the crew watering and provisioning the Muntjac, even if it was the middle of the night and pissing rain. Somebody else would have to plot the course, since Benedict was dead, but that wasn’t a problem because they didn’t know where they were going. It didn’t matter. He didn’t understand what they were doing anymore. It was obviously a very effective way to procure magic keys, but how was that going to help Julia? Or rebuild the Neitherlands? Or calm the clock-trees? What could the keys possibly be good for that was worth this—Benedict curled up on the dock like a little boy trying to get warm?

They all worked together through the night, whey-faced and industrious. Julia sat with the corpse, slowly reassuming her human form, her mourning dress for once entirely appropriate for the occasion. Also fully in character was Bingle, whose haunted demeanor had darkened to funereal. He spent the night by himself haunting the ship’s bow, hunched in on himself in his cloak like a hurt bird.

Once Quentin went forward to see if he was all right, but he heard Bingle mumble to himself:

“Not again. I must go where I can do no further harm.”

And Quentin thought, maybe I’ll leave him to work that out by himself.

The sky was paling through the rain clouds when Quentin went out alone into the square in front of the castle to finish the job. He was chilled through and bone tired. He felt like the living corpse in the library. He wasn’t the best person for this job, but it was his job to do. He got down on one knee in front of the little obelisk with a hammer and a chisel, which he’d borrowed from the ship’s carpenter.

Probably this could be done by magic, except he couldn’t remember how just now, and he didn’t want to do it by magic anyway. He wanted to feel it. He set the point of the chisel against the stone and started chipping. When he was done there were two words there, ragged but legible:

BENEDICT ISLAND

Back on the ship he gave the order—eastward ho—though everybody knew what the order was before he gave it. Then he went below. Quentin heard the anchor being weighed. The world tilted and came unmoored, and he was finally gone.