They all looked at each other over the cold crusts and dead coffee.

“I almost forgot,” she said. “He gave me something.” She unzipped her backpack and rummaged in it for a sheet of parchment, closely written. “It’s a palimpsest. Can you believe it? So old-school. I watched him scrape the ink off some priceless ancient hymnal or something to make it. Probably a Dead Sea Scroll or something. He wrote out how to call on the goddess. Our Lady Underground.”

Pouncy took the paper from her. His fingers shook slightly.

“An invocation,” he said.

“So that’s it then,” Julia said. “The Lady’s phone number.”

“That’s it. It’s in Phoenician, I think, if you can believe it. He didn’t know if she’d come, but . . .”

Asmo picked up the heel of Pouncy’s loaf and started chewing it, without seeming to know she was doing it. She closed her eyes.

“Shit,” she said. “I have to go to bed.”

“Go.” Pouncy didn’t look up from the paper. “Go. We’ll talk after you’ve slept.”

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 24

The Muntjac was becalmed, tossing on the gentle swell in the restless, unsettled way that boats do when they’re built for speed but making no headway. Its slack ropes and tackle jostled and banged against the masts. It didn’t like standing still.

Rain fuzzed the surface of the sea into a cloudy gray blur. Nobody spoke. A week had gone by since Quentin and Poppy came back from the Neitherlands, bearing news of the coming magical apocalypse and the true nature of the keys. The long, low-ceilinged cabin where they ate their meals was filled with the sound of drops drumming on the deck overhead, so that they would have had to practically yell at each other to be understood anyway.

They were going to find the last key. Definitely. They just weren’t sure yet precisely how they were going to do it.

“Let’s go over it again,” Eliot said, raising his voice to be heard over the rain. “These things always work by rules, you just have to figure out what they are. You went through with Julia.” He pointed at Quentin. “But you didn’t take the key with you.”

“No.”

“Could it have fallen through before the door closed? Could it be in the grass on your parents’ lawn?”

“No. Impossible.” He was almost sure. No, he was sure. The grass was like a damn putting green, they would have seen it.

“But then you”—he turned to Bingle—“you searched the room and found no key.”

“No key.”

“But just now when you two”—Quentin and Poppy—“went through to the Neitherlands, that key remained behind, here, on this side.”

“Correct,” Poppy said. “Don’t tell me it’s gone too.”

“No, we have it.”

“What happened to it when the door closed?” Quentin asked. “Did it stay hanging there in midair?”