Now the two of them were thoroughly nested, and a week ago they’d told him that Poppy was pregnant. It wasn’t public yet, but she was starting to show. The people would love it. There hadn’t been a prince or princess of Fillory in centuries. It made Eliot feel a little alone, and a little empty, but only a little. Life was long. Plenty of time for that stuff, if he ever found himself wanting it. He was High King in a Great Age. His business right now was logging some Great Deeds.

He heard the thump of hooves on the grass, and a stiff wingtip brushed the coarse silk wall by his head. The pegasi were here. He opened his eyes and heaved himself up; he was pretty sure the wound had stopped bleeding, though he could feel where his shirt was stuck to it. Quentin had been shot with an arrow there once. They’d fix him up back at Whitespire. He would have them leave a nice scar. Without waiting for Janet he put on his king-face and strolled outside.

The pegasi were trotting around on the cold grass, circling each other restlessly, their tremendous white eagle-wings still half extended. They hated to keep still, pegasi. Marvelous beasts they were, pure white and light as air, though they looked as solid as any regular horse, with thick muscles and squiggly blue veins standing out beneath the skin like power cords under a rug. Their silver—platinum? shiny anyway—hooves flashed in the morning sun.

They stopped pacing and stared at him expectantly. They could speak, but they hardly ever deigned to, not to humans, not even to the High King.

“Janet!” he called.

“Coming!”

“Just leave your stuff. They’ll pack it for you.”

“True.”

She exited the tent a moment later, empty-handed; she’d changed into jodhpurs.

“You know, I had a thought,” she said. “With the army all mobilized like this, why don’t we take advantage of the momentum? Keep on pushing them back and take Loria?”

“Take Loria.”

“Right. Then we bring the whole army to the Neitherlands and march it through the fountain and take Earth! Right? It would be so easy!”

“Sometimes,” Eliot said, “I find it so hard to know when you’re joking.”

“I have the same problem.”

The pegasi seemed even more reluctant than usual to remain earthbound. They barely stayed still long enough for Eliot and Janet to mount.