There were no paths, but they didn’t especially need any. The little scrub trees were far enough apart that the horses could walk between them. Eliot had to fight a feeling of panic, an urgent need for decisive action. This was day six of Janet’s timeline, and even though she’d made it up on the spur of the moment it had taken on an authoritative feel. They had a lead, a slim one, but it was a stretch to call it an adventure. It wasn’t much to hang a quest on. They were trotting along in search of they didn’t even really know what, and there was no way to speed up the process, if there even was a process. It was quixotic, was what it was. Not even that, it was sub-quixotic. My kingdom for a windmill to tilt at.

“I had an idea last night,” Janet said. “For saving the world. I woke up with it in the middle of the night but then forgot all about it till now. Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

“We hunt the White Stag, like Quentin did. We catch it or shoot it or whatever you do with it. We get three wishes. We wish Fillory would last forever and not die. Done. Mischief managed.”

Eliot was silent.

“You have to admit—”

“No, it’s good,” he said. “It’s definitely good. You think the stag could do that?”

“No idea. But it’s worth a try, right?”

“Definitely worth a try. Agreed. If this quest is a bust we’ll do that.”

“Plus we’d still have two wishes left over after we saved the world,” Janet said. “One each. What else would you wish for?”

“I feel like I should wish for Quentin back.”

Janet laughed.

“Then I could use my wish to wish him away again. Psych!”

They slept that night in the barrens; they had to burn flat a circle of ground to make room for their tent. The trees were surprisingly fireproof—the wood was fantastically hard and dense—but when they caught they burned like rocket fuel, hot on their faces, sending sparks and spears of light up into the night sky and leaving fountainous afterimages on their vision. It made for a July Fourth atmosphere, a summer carnival in a wasteland, and they broke out the last of the wine. After a couple of bottles Janet suggested they start a huge forest fire, because it would look cool; Eliot thought it would be more prudent not to, but he agreed that if they couldn’t save the world they might as well come back here and burn the Clock Barrens before the end.