“I wish I could have stayed. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s so stupid! If I’d just waited on the boat I’d still be up there. I looked at that arrow and thought, this little stick, this little piece of wood, is taking my whole life away. That’s all my life is worth. One little stick can erase it all. That’s the last thing I thought.” He looked directly at Quentin. It was the one moment when he didn’t seem angry or ashamed. “I miss it so much. You don’t understand how much I miss it.”

“I’m so sorry, Benedict. We miss you too.”

“Listen, you better go. I don’t think they want you here.”

A whole crowd was standing around them now, silently, in a rough semicircle. Maybe it was Quentin’s nonstandard pajamas. Maybe they could just see that he was alive somehow. That kid was one of them, who’d been staring at him before. Quentin wished the shades weren’t so solid-looking.

Quentin and Benedict both stood up, with their backs to the pillar. So did Julia.

“I have something,” Benedict said, suddenly shy again. “I was going to give it back.”

He dug something out of his pocket and pressed it into Quentin’s hand. His fingers were cold, and the thing was hard and cold too. It was the golden key.

“Oh. My God.” It was the last one. Quentin held it up in both hands. “Benedict, how did you get this?”

“Quentin,” Julia said. “Is that it?”

“I had it all along,” Benedict said. “After you and Queen Julia went through the door I picked it up when no one was looking. I don’t know why. I didn’t know how to give it back. I thought maybe I’d pretend to find it. I’m sorry. I wanted to be a hero.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Quentin’s heart was hammering in his chest. This was it. They were going to win after all. “Don’t be sorry at all. It doesn’t matter.”

“Then it came down here with me when I died. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You did the right thing, Benedict.” He’d been so wrong about everything. After all that, he hadn’t had to kill a monster or solve a riddle. He just had to come down here, to see how Benedict was doing. “Thank you. You are a hero. You really are. You always will be.”

Quentin laughed out loud and clapped poor Benedict on the shoulder. Benedict laughed too, reluctantly, and then not so reluctantly. Quentin wondered when the last time was that anybody laughed down here.

“It is time,” Julia said. “I am ready.”