This, now, this stopped him. He’d known that adventures were supposed to be hard. He’d understood that he would have to go a long way and solve difficult problems and fight foes and be brave and whatever else. But this was hard in a way he hadn’t counted on. You couldn’t kill it with a sword or fix it with a spell. You couldn’t fight it. You just had to endure it, and you didn’t look good or noble or heroic doing it. You were just the guy people felt sorry for, that was all. It didn’t make a good story—in fact he saw now that the stories had it all wrong, about what you got, and what you gave. It’s not that he wasn’t willing. He just hadn’t understood. He wasn’t ready for it.

“I feel like an asshole, Quentin,” Josh said.

“No, listen, you’re totally right.” Quentin’s lips were numb. He kept talking. “I should have thought of it. Listen, you’re going to love it.”

“You can have the palazzo.”

“Great, man, thanks, that’ll be great.”

“I’m sorry, Quentin!” Poppy threw her arms around him. “I had to say yes!”

“It’s okay! Jesus!”

You didn’t want to be a grown man saying come on, it isn’t fair. But it didn’t feel all that fair.

“It is time,” Ember said, standing there on His stupid little ballerina hoofs.

“Listen, we have to do this now,” Eliot said. His face was white. This was costing him too.

“Fine. Okay. Give me the button.”

Josh hugged him fiercely, and then Poppy. She kissed him too, but he could hardly feel it. He knew he would be sorry later, but it was just too much. He had to do this right now or he was going to implode.

“I’ll miss you,” he said. “Be a good queen.”

“I have something for you,” Eliot said. “I was saving it for when this was all over, but . . . well, I guess it’s all over.”

From inside his jacket Eliot brought out a silver pocket watch. Quentin would have known it anywhere: it was from the little clock-tree that had been growing in the magic clearing in the Queenswood, where all this began. Eliot must have harvested it when he went back there. It ticked away merrily, as if it were happy to see him again.

He put it in his pocket. He wasn’t in the mood for merriness. Too bad it wasn’t a gold watch: the classic retirement present.

“Thank you. It’s beautiful.” It was.

The huge horned moon of Fillory was up now, clearing the wall at the edge of the world with its nightly leap. It didn’t rumble, like the sun, but this close it rang faintly, like a struck tuning fork. Quentin looked at it long and hard. Probably he would never see it again.