Fillory! she thought. We’re coming! Just hold on a little longer! It was as if just by convincing Penny she could keep Fillory alive.

“I think you’re looking at this too literally,” Eliot said.

“Maybe you’re not looking at it literally enough,” Alice said, startling everybody, possibly including herself. “Those two walls are empty. And there’s space between the windows too.”

“It would be very irregular.” Penny folded his arms, his gilded hands glowing with indignation. “But more to the point it makes no sense. The map is complete. There is no more Fillory.”

“That’s not completely true,” Quentin said. “There’s a whole bunch of outlying islands. Like Outer Island would be over there”—he pointed—“if you wrapped it around the corner of the room.”

“And Benedict Island, I suppose,” Eliot said, reluctantly picking up the thread. “That’s way the hell over there. And who knows what there is on the other side, the west side.”

“There’s a whole other continent,” said Quentin.

Plum couldn’t tell if they were arguing for the sake of arguing or if she had a real point, but Penny was looking around the room uncertainly, as if the walls were crawling with insects. She even felt a little bad for him.

But not so bad that she shut up. Never let it be said Plum was without a plan. She wouldn’t let Fillory be dead. It wasn’t getting off that easily. No more hiding. The two halves of her life would become one.

“You could do the night sky!” she said. “The stars! You could have a bunch of navy books with silver dots on them. You could do that thing where you hang them from the ceiling!” She favored Penny with her most winning beam. “You love that thing!”

Penny was not a man much used to being beamed at. It had an effect.

“It’s not complete,” he said, half to himself. “It’s not nearly complete. We’re going to need more books, a lot more. Quentin, you have to save Fillory.”

“That’s what I keep saying,” Quentin said. “And I think I’ve figured out how. I think I finally know how to fix everything.”

CHAPTER 29

Historically speaking,” Alice said, “when people have said that they’ve almost always been wrong.”

Quentin loved having Alice alive again. It was absolutely the greatest thing ever. Whether or not she loved him, whether or not she could stand the sight of him, the world, any world, was just so much better with her in it.

“What are you going to do?” Eliot said.

“Something stupid. Penny, where’s the Fillory fountain from here?”