There was a time when Quentin would have seized on that possibility like a drowning man. Now it gave him a pang, the dull ache of an old wound, but that was all. That time had passed. He shook his head.

“I can’t, Eliot. Not now. I’m needed here.”

Alice snorted at the notion that anybody anywhere might need Quentin.

“I was afraid of that,” Eliot said. “Well look, just come with me as far as the Neitherlands. That’s all I ask. For all I know there’s a smoking crater where the Fillory fountain was. I don’t want to face that alone.”

“Ooooh,” Plum said. Her eyes went round. “I want to go to the Eitherlands!”

“Neitherlands,” Eliot said, suddenly peevish. “And it’s not a field trip for interns.”

They were interrupted by something scratching at the front door. The room fell silent. They weren’t expecting visitors. Nobody knew they were here, or nobody should have. Quentin put a finger to his lips.

More scratching. It stopped and then started again. He got up and walked as quietly as he could over to the door and peered through the spy hole. Empty street. There was nobody there. He looked at the others. Eliot shrugged.

He cracked the door a few inches, keeping the chain on, and something small and frantic burst in past him, and he reeled back a step. It was the blackbird.

It flapped crazily around the room for thirty long seconds, with that special horror that birds have of being indoors, before it settled on the Sputnik chandelier. Even then its gaze darted everywhere, constantly, like it was expecting danger from any and all directions. It looked different: thinner and more bedraggled. It was missing some feathers, and the ones it still had had lost their gloss.

“Do not kill me!” it said.

Plum and Eliot were on their feet. Only Alice hadn’t moved.

“What are you doing here?” Quentin said. “Are you alone?”

“I am alone!”

“Why should we believe you?” Plum said. “You fucking asshole. You betrayed us. And you probably murdered Pushkar. He had a family, you know. Quentin, should we kill it?”

“Maybe. Not yet.” If this was a trap, or a feint, or a diversion, it was a weird one, if only because he figured the bird for a physical coward. It wasn’t like it to lead from the front. “Plum, watch it. I’m going to look around for anybody else.”

But there was no one else, not in front or in back or on the roof or in any immediately adjacent planes of existence, not that he could detect. Maybe it really was alone.

“I take it this is that bird,” Eliot said. “The one who hired you.”

“It’s that bird. What are you doing here?”

“I have no more money,” it said. “I tried to hire more magicians, but without Lionel it went poorly.”