“Jesus Christ,” Quentin said. “What a monster.”

“It’s the Big Ben of clock-trees,” Janet said behind him.

“I’ve never seen one like that,” Eliot said. “Do you think it was the first one she made?”

Whatever it was, it was a Fillorian wonder, a real one, wild and grand and strange. It was a long time since he’d seen one, or maybe it was just a long time since he’d noticed. He felt a twinge of something he hadn’t felt since Ember’s Tomb: fear, and something more. Awe. They were looking the mystery in the face. This was the raw stuff, the main line, the old, old magic.

They stood together, strung out along the edge of the meadow. The clock’s minute hand poked out at a right angle from the trunk like a broken finger. A yard from its base a little sapling sprouted where the gears had fallen, as if from an acorn, swaying back and forth in the silent gale. A silver pocket watch ticked away in a knot in its slender trunk. A typically cute Fillorian touch.

This was going to be good.

“I’ll go first.”

Quentin started forward, but Eliot put a hand on his arm.

“I wouldn’t.”

“I would. Why not?”

“Because clock-trees don’t just move like that. And I’ve never seen a broken one before. I didn’t think they could break. This isn’t a natural place. The hare must have led us here.”

“I know, right? It’s classic!”

Julia shook her head. She looked pale, and there was a dead leaf in her hair, but she was back on her feet.

“See how regular the clearing is,” she said. “It is a perfect circle. Or at least an ellipse. There is a powerful area-effect spell radiating out from the center. Or from the foci,” she added quietly, “in the case of an ellipse.”

“You go in there, there’s no telling where you’ll end up,” Eliot said.

“Of course there isn’t. That’s why I’m going.”

This, this was what he needed. This was the point—he’d been waiting for it without even knowing it. God, it had been so long. This was an adventure. He couldn’t believe the others would even hesitate. Behind him Dauntless whickered in the stillness.

It wasn’t a question of courage. It was like they’d forgotten who they were, and where they were, and why. Quentin retrieved his bow and took another arrow from his quiver. As an experiment, he set his stance, drew, and shot at the tree trunk. Before it reached its target the arrow slowed, like it was moving through water instead of air. They watched it float, tumbling a little end over end, backward, in slow motion. Finally it gave up the last of its momentum and just stopped, five feet off the ground.

Then it burst, soundlessly, into white sparks.

“Wow.” Quentin laughed. He couldn’t help it. “This place is enchanted as balls!”

He turned to the others.

“What do you think? This looks like an adventure to me. Remember adventures? Like in the books?”