She spat, and the gob froze in midair and slid across the ice. With that she turned and walked away. Eliot practically fell off the boardwalk getting out of her way. He didn’t want to touch those axes.

He felt like he should say something too, before he went, so he did.

“Dick.”

“Worm,” the turtle rasped back. Its breath smoked in the sudden cold. “You’ll see. It’s turtles all the way down.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “I’ve heard that before.”

He trotted off after Janet. She left frost footprints behind her.

CHAPTER 12

It wasn’t until a couple of hours later, when they were back on their horses and heading southwest, the direction of blessedly solid dry ground and, eventually, Barion and its clear alcoholic balm, that Janet cleared her throat and said:

“So I guess you’re probably wondering how I all of a sudden turned into an amazing ice goddess with magic axes just now.”

Eliot was, actually. But he was going to see how long he could go without mentioning it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to know, they both knew he did. It was a game they played.

They both knew he would cave eventually.

“With what now?” he said airily. “Oh. Sure. I guess so.”

“I call the right axe Sorrow,” she said. “You know what I call the left one?”

“Happiness?”

“Sorrow. I can’t tell them apart.”

“Mmm. Mm-hm.”

They rode together in silence for another five minutes. They were both seasoned players. Eliot kept looking over his shoulder—he was paranoid that one of those pink jellyfish things was going to come up on him from behind and drape its tentacles all over him. After it stopped his heart it would probably reel him up into its innards and you’d be able to see him being digested through its translucent flesh. It would all be very public.

Though again: what did it matter, if the world was ending? But it did matter. He knew that. Everything still mattered. Now more than ever. He decided to concede the loss.

“OK, so how did you all of a sudden become etcetera and so on?”

“I’m so happy you asked! Remember that time when you guys went off to sea and left me in charge of Fillory for like a year and a half?”

“And saved magic and by extension the entire world? I do.”

“Well, it was fun running everything and making all the decisions and implementing long-overdue reforms, but then after a month things got a little slow, and I needed a project. So you know that desert that’s south of Fillory, across the Copper Mountains?”

“I know of it.”

“I annexed it.”

“Wait.” Eliot reined in his horse, and they both stopped. “You invaded the desert?”