They were fixing the world. But Quentin preferred it broken. He wondered how long it would take. Years, maybe—maybe he could go home and not think about it and it would all happen after he was dead. But he wasn’t getting that impression. Quentin wondered what he would do if magic went away. He didn’t know how he would live in that world. Most people wouldn’t even notice the change, of course, but if you knew about it, knew what you’d lost, it would eat away at you. He didn’t know if he could explain it to a non-magician. Everything would simply be what it was and nothing else. All there would be was what you could see. What you felt and thought, all the longing and desire in your heart and mind, would count for nothing. With magic you could make those feelings real. They could change the world. Without it they would be stuck inside you forever, figments of your own imagination.

And Venice. Venice would drown. Its weight would crush those wooden pilings, and it would disappear into the sea.

You could see the gods’ point of view. They made magic. Why would they want an ignorant insect like Quentin playing around with it? But he couldn’t accept it. He wasn’t going to. Why should the gods be the only ones who got magic? They didn’t appreciate it. They didn’t even enjoy it. It didn’t make them happy. It was theirs, but they didn’t love it, not the way he, Quentin, loved it. The gods were great, but what good was greatness if you didn’t love?

“So is it going to happen?” he asked. For now he would be stoic like Penny. “Is there any way to stop it?”

He was warm again, but the chill kept creeping back in through the soles of his boots.

“Probably not.” Penny began to walk, like a regular mortal, with his actual feet. The snow didn’t seem to bother him. Quentin and Poppy walked with him. “But there is a way. We always knew this might happen. We prepared for it. Tell me, what’s the first thing a hacker does once he breaks into a system?”

“I don’t know,” Quentin said. “He steals a bunch of credit card numbers and subscribes to a lot of really premium porn sites?”

“He sets up a back door.” It was good to know that even having attained enlightenment Penny was still impervious to humor. “So that if he’s ever locked out, he can get back in.”

“The Order did that?”

“So they say. A back door was built into the system, metaphorically speaking, that would let magic back out into the universe, if the gods ever returned to claim it. It just has to be opened.”