Julia took both his hands in hers and kissed him on the mouth, a long kiss, full at last of something like real love. Demi-goddess or no, at that moment she seemed fully herself to him in a way she hadn’t for years, not since their last day together in Brooklyn, when both their lives had been changed beyond recognition. Whatever losses she’d suffered, this was Julia, all of her. And Quentin felt pretty whole now too.

She stepped up to the doorway, but she didn’t kneel. She straightened and squared herself like an Olympic diver and then, disdaining the ladder, she dove off the edge, straight down, and disappeared.

When she was gone the beach was a little darker.

It was over and done with at last. He was ready for the curtain to come down. He wasn’t looking forward to the all-night slog back to the Muntjac, and God knew how they were going to get home from there. Surely there must be some trick, some more magic lying around somewhere that would enable them to skip over that part. Maybe Ember would come.

“Where’s the damn Cozy Horse when you need it?” Josh must have been thinking the same thing.

“And how should Quentin pay?” the Customs Agent said. She was speaking to the man in the black suit.

Suddenly Quentin felt less tired.

“What do you mean?” he said. They were whispering again.

“Hang on,” Eliot said. “That’s not how it works.”

“It is,” said the man, “how it works. Julia’s debt is now upon Quentin, and he must settle it. What is it that Quentin holds most dear?”

“Well,” Quentin said, “I’m already not going to the Far Side.”

Brilliant. He should have been a lawyer. A thought froze him: they were going to take Poppy. Or do something to her. He was afraid to even look at her in case it gave them ideas.

“His crown,” Elaine announced. “I am sorry, Quentin. As of this moment you are no longer a king of Fillory.”

“You exceed your authority,” Eliot said hotly.

Quentin had been braced for devastation, but when it came he didn’t feel anything at all. That was what they were taking, and they would take it. Had taken it. He didn’t feel any different. It was all very abstract, kingliness, in the end. He supposed what he would miss most was his big, quiet bedroom at Castle Whitespire. He faced the others, but none of them looked at him any differently. He took a deep breath.

“Well,” he said stupidly. “Easy come.”

That was the end of Quentin the Magician King, just like that. He was somebody else now. It was a silly thing to be sad about, really. For God’s sake they’d just saved magic, saved all their lives. Julia had found her peace. They had finished the quest. He hadn’t lost, he’d won.