“You should see it, Quentin. I mean really see the Neitherlands, the way I have. It’s not infinite, you know, but it goes on for thousands of miles in all directions. It’s wonderful. They show you everything when you get in the Order.”

It was funny about Penny. He was an arrogant prick—notice the way he all but ignored Poppy—and he’d suffered terribly, but deep down under it he was still very innocent, and every once in a while his innocence overpowered his arrogance. Quentin didn’t quite have it in him to like Penny, but he felt he understood Penny. Penny was the only person he’d ever met who loved magic, really loved it, the same way he did: naively, romantically, completely.

“After a while you get to be able to read the squares, like a language. Each one is an expression of the world it leads to, if you understand the grammar of it. No two are the same. There’s one square, just one, that’s a mile on each side, and it has a golden fountain in the center. They say the world it leads to is like heaven. They haven’t let me go through yet.”

Quentin wondered what heaven would be like for Penny. Probably in heaven you were always right and you never had to stop talking. God, he could be a dick where Penny was concerned. Probably in heaven you had hands.

They were silent for a bit, as they crossed a stone bridge over a canal. Little whirling snow-devils chased each other across the ice.

“Where did the gods go?” Poppy asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe they’ve been in heaven. But they’re back. They’ve come back to close the loophole. They’re taking magic back, Quentin. They’re going to take it all away from us.”

They’d come to a square that looked no different from any of the others except that the fountain in the center was closed. A tarnished bronze cover, ornately inscribed, fitted over the basin. It was held shut by a simple latch. Penny glided over to the fountain, over the snow, the tips of his bare toes brushing it. He let himself float gently to the ground.