Afterward they lay next to each other on the bed. It had worked, for now, her body had gotten what it wanted. Not once but twice, which if she remembered correctly had been rather a rarity in the old days. But then again Quentin had had some practice since then. Poppy, why had she watched him with Poppy? It had seemed so funny at the time, but now it hurt her. She wished she could forget it.

She scooched away from him. She wanted to go away again. She let herself fall into herself, falling and falling, pulling away, into the inner darkness, dreaming of flying. She withdrew inside her body like a timorous crab inside an enormous whelk. She had felt so human before, so her old self, but she was losing it, and she let it go. She had thought for a moment that it was simple, but she was remembering that it wasn’t.

He sat up and started putting his clothes on.

“I have to go,” he said. “To the Neitherlands. To find Ember. Come with me.”

She shook her head. She wanted him gone. It was so much easier this way. He was gathering up her clothes too.

“Alice.” She didn’t react. She would sleep now. “Alice. I want you to know that I mean it in the kindest possible way when I say that you are being the most unbelievable pussy.”

He took her hand again and they vanished, both of them together.

CHAPTER 28

They were going to all go together, and from a tactical perspective Plum thought it would have been a better idea, but Eliot was getting impatient, and then there were the noises. From upstairs. Quentin and Alice. Plum and Eliot exchanged looks and nodded; no words were needed. It was probably a good development for all involved, on balance, but seriously: they were not going to hang around and listen to that.

Eliot made a big show about how interdimensional travel was really no big whoop to him anymore, but Plum was not going to let him ruin it for her. This was radical magic, world-expanding stuff, and even under the present grimmish circumstances she was a complete nerd for that shit. She could hardly wait. He held out his hand, in a foppish kind of a gesture, and she took it, and he put his other hand in his pocket and—oh.

Clear cold water. They were floating in it, floating upward. In spite of herself she laughed with pleasure and as a result almost choked on magic water. They rose up toward light, points of it, glittery and diffuse above them but getting more focused all the time, and then their heads broke the surface.

It wasn’t what she was expecting, not based on what she’d heard. They were inside somewhere, in a vast room lit by two chandeliers, treading water in what looked more like an indoor swimming pool than a fountain.