“Benedict is in the underworld. He is not a ghost. He is a shade.” The sloth returned her head to its inverted position, a maneuver she accomplished without once dropping Quentin’s gaze.

“The underworld.” Jesus Christ. He hadn’t even realized Fillory had an underworld. “He’s in hell?”

“He is in the underworld, where dead souls go.”

“Is he all right there? Or I mean, I know he’s dead, but is he at peace? Or whatever?”

“That I cannot tell you. My understanding of human moods is imprecise. A sloth knows only peace, nothing else.”

It must be nice to be a sloth. Quentin was unsettled by the idea of Benedict in the underworld. It bothered him that Benedict could be dead but still—not alive, but what? Conscious? Awake? It was like he was buried alive. It sounded awful.

“But he’s not being tortured, right? By red guys with horns and pitchforks?” It never did to assume anything was impossible in Fillory.

“No. He is not being tormented.”

“But he’s not in heaven either.”

“I do not know what ‘heaven’ is. Fillory has only an underworld.”

“So how can I talk to him? Can you—I don’t know, put in a call? Patch me through?”

“No, Quentin. I am not a medium. I am a psychopomp. I do not speak to the dead, but I can show you the path to the underworld.”

Quentin was not sure he wanted to be shown that. He studied the sloth’s upside-down face. It was unreadable.

“Physically? I could physically go there?”

“Yes.”

Deep breath.

“Okay. I would really love to help Benedict, but I don’t want to leave the world of the living.”

“I will not force you. Indeed, I could not.”

It was spooky down in the hold, which was lightless except for the flame of Quentin’s candle, which stayed perfectly upright as the ship pitched forward and back. The hanging sloth did too—she swayed slightly, like a pendulum. Quentin’s eyes kept wandering off into the darkness. It was otherworldly down here. The ship’s curved sides were like the ribs of some huge animal that had swallowed them. Where was the underworld? Was it underground? Underwater?

The sloth chose this moment to engage in some self-grooming, which she did with her customary slowness and thoroughness, first with her tongue and then with a thick, woody claw, which she slowly and laboriously unhooked from around the beam.

“In a way”—she said, as she licked and clawed—“we sloths are like . . . small worlds . . . unto ourselves.”

Nobody could wait out a pause like a sloth. Or survive on less conversational encouragement. He wondered if to a sloth the human world appeared to move past at blinding, flickering speed—if humans looked twitchy and sped-up to her, the same way the sloth looked slowed-down to Quentin.