At the far end, where remnants of the upper floor formed a partial shelter, someone had arranged some of the more intact books into tall, neat stacks. The man who presumably had arranged them stood among them. Or no, he wasn’t standing, he was floating a foot off the ground, with his arms spread out.

That’s where the blue light was coming from. There were runes on the floor below him that gave off a faint cold glow. Either he was a fellow refugee from the destruction or the author of it. It seemed like a good moment to take a bad risk.

“There’s someone inside!” he called down to Poppy. He raised his voice. “Hey!”

The man didn’t look up.

“Hey!” Quentin yelled again. “Hi!” Maybe he was Fillorian.

“Quentin,” Poppy said.

“Hang on. Hi! Hi!”

“Quentin, the doors are opening.”

He looked down. So they were. The doors were opening outward, all by themselves.

“Okay. I’m coming down.”

It wasn’t much easier coming down; he’d lost all feeling in his fingers. He took Poppy’s numb hand in his own. This really was their last chance.

“Shall we?” he said. It sounded even thinner than he meant it to.

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 22

They picked their way through the rubble, trying out of politeness to step on as few pages as possible. Quentin almost turned an ankle on a stone that rolled under his foot.

The blue light from the runes seemed to be what was supporting the man. His bare feet hung a yard off the ground. He had sandy hair and a large round face—his round head could almost have been what was holding him up, like a balloon. Around him in a cloud hung a dozen books, and a few more single sheets of paper, all opened in his direction, presumably so he could consult them simultaneously. The pages of two of the books were turning slowly.

He didn’t greet them or even look at them as they approached. He had long sleeves that fell over his hands, but there was something odd about the way the material hung. As Quentin got closer it became obvious what it was: the man had no hands. It was Penny.

Quentin hadn’t recognized him without the mohawk, and his hair fully grown in. He’d never known what Penny’s natural hair color was, only that it probably wasn’t metallic green. Penny rotated in place to face them, gazing down from where he hung in midair. He was thinner than he once was, much. He didn’t used to have cheekbones.

Quentin stood at the edge of the eerie blue letters etched in the ground. The cold had gotten into his core. He couldn’t stop his shoulders from shaking.

“Penny,” he said lamely. “It’s you.”

Penny watched him calmly.