Quentin hadn’t been celibate since Alice died, but he hadn’t exactly been cutting a swath either. The problem with sleeping with people who weren’t Alice was that somehow it made Alice even more gone. It meant really, truly knowing and admitting that she was never coming back. With Poppy he let himself know it a little more, and that should have made it hurt more, but strangely it made it hurt a little less.

“Why don’t you stay?” he said one day, while they were eating lunch in his cabin, cross-legged on his bed. Fish again. “Come live in a castle for a while. I realize you’re not a Fillory nerd like me, but haven’t you ever wanted to live in a castle? Haven’t you ever wanted to be a queen?”

If or when they eventually made it back to Castle Whitespire, with or without that last key, it was going to be something less than a triumphant homecoming. It would be good to have Poppy beside him when he sailed back into that harbor, for moral support. And for immoral support too.

“Mmmm.” Poppy salted her fish within an inch of its life, then drenched it in lemon juice. No amount of flavor seemed to be too much for her. “You make it sound romantic.”

“It is romantic. That’s not just me. Living in a castle is objectively romantic.”

“See, this is spoken like somebody who didn’t grow up in a monarchy. Australia still has a queen. There’s a lot of history there. Remind me to tell you about the constitutional crisis of 1975 sometime. Very unromantic.”

“I can promise you there will be no constitutional crises if we go to Whitespire. We don’t even have a constitution. Or if we do I promise you nobody’s ever read it.”

“I know, Quentin.” She pressed her lips together. “But I don’t think so. I don’t know how much longer I can stay here.”

“Why not? What do you have to get back to?”

“My entire life? Everybody I know? The real world?”

“This world is real.” He scooched over next to her, so that their hips touched. “Here. Feel.”

“That is not what I meant.”

She put her plate on the floor and lay back on the bunk. She hit her head on the wall. It wasn’t made for a tall person, let alone two.

“I know.” Quentin didn’t know why he was fighting her on this. He knew she wasn’t going to stay. Maybe that’s what made this so easy, that he knew the outcome in advance. There was no chance that she would get too close. He was playing to lose. “But seriously, what’s back there for you? Your dissertation? On dragon-ology, or whatever? Or tell me you don’t have a boyfriend.”