“Ember told Jane Chatwin,” Quentin said. “Jane told me. But you’re right, maybe this is all Umber’s fault. Maybe He’s the hidden hand or hoof or whatever behind the apocalypse.”

“But why?” Eliot rubbed his face with both hands. “Why would He do that? How can He be alive? Where’s He been all this time? How can He be evil? What, is He Ember’s evil twin? It’s a bit of a cliché, even for Fillory.”

Buckets of sunlight were pouring overenthusiastically in through the bay windows. It was claustrophobic in the house—Quentin hadn’t been outside for days. As tired as he’d been he hadn’t slept well the night before. It was hard knowing that Alice was right there, burning, always burning, with just a thin slip of world between them. He wondered if Alice ever slept. He didn’t think she did.

“And Castle Blackspire?” Eliot was getting more and more animated. “What’s that? It screws up the entire structure! Where does it end? Umber’s got to be the key, one way or the other. Got to. That must be the clue Jane wanted us to find.” Coming to the end of his caffeine fit, he dropped bonelessly into a vinyl armchair. “I’m going to send a message to Janet. She should know about this.”

“You can do that? Send a message to Fillory?”

“It’s not easy. Kind of like a very expensive telegram. But yeah, RHIP. Let’s talk about something else. What’ve you learned about your dead girlfriend?”

“She’s not dead,” Quentin said.

“Bzzt!” Eliot pressed an imaginary game-show button on the arm of the chair. “The answer I was looking for was, ‘She’s not my girlfriend, she’s a crazy magic rage-demon.’ Maybe you should just take the land apart. Scrub it out. Cut your losses.”

“What, with Alice inside?”

“Well, she’ll survive, probably. You can’t kill those things. She’ll just go back where she came from.”

“But she’s still alive, Eliot, and she’s right there. Right there! If there was ever, ever going to be a chance to change her back, this is it.”

“Quentin—”

“Don’t Quentin me.” Now he was the one getting animated. “This is what I’m doing. What I have to do. You’re saving Fillory, I’m doing this.”

“Quentin, look at me.” Eliot sat up. “You’re right. If there was ever a chance this would be it. But there isn’t a chance. That’s not Alice. Alice is already dead. She died seven years ago, and you can’t bring her back.”

“I went to the Underworld. She wasn’t there.”