Ember’s deep bass voice was clearly audible even over the rushing of the wind. He had no wings, and He didn’t even bother to gallop, though occasionally the air ruffled His tight woolly curls. He just flew along in between them, stiff ram’s legs tucked up under Him like He was sitting on an invisible flying carpet.

“Hi!” Eliot called out. “I’m listening!”

“You have won a great victory for Fillory today.”

“I know! Thanks!”

Maybe this was the time to bring up Quentin. But Ember went on.

“But this was only one battle. A war is beginning, Eliot, a war we cannot win. The last war.”

“What? Wait, I don’t understand. What does that mean?”

This wasn’t the speech Eliot was expecting. He was expecting the one where Ember praised him to the skies, showered him with fatherly approval, granted him a boon.

“What war are You watching?” Janet shouted. “We crushed those guys! Eliot crushed them! It’s over!”

“Have you not wondered how it is that the Lorians could have crossed the Northern Barrier into Fillory?”

“Well, yeah,” Eliot admitted. “A little.”

“The old spells have weakened. This invasion was merely a portent, foretold long ago. The war we are losing is with time.”

“Oh,” Eliot said. “OK.”

Was it? A war with time. He vaguely remembered something like this in the books, but it had been a long time since he read them. And even then he hadn’t read them too closely. Once again he wished Quentin were here.

“The end is almost here, Eliot,” Ember said.

“The end of what?”

“Of everything,” Ember said. “Of this land. This world. Fillory is dying.”

“What? Oh, come on!” That was ridiculous. A cheap shot, at best. Fillory wasn’t dying. Fillory was kicking ass right now. Time of legends! World without end! “What are you talking about?”

Ember didn’t reply. Instead the pegasus spoke for the first time. Eliot had never heard one speak before.

“Oh no,” it said. It gave a horsey sigh. “Not again.”

CHAPTER 6

They left the bookstore in two cars. A black Lexus SUV rolled up to the loading dock and Lionel loaded the birdcage carefully into the backseat, then put a seatbelt on it and climbed in the other side. Once they were gone a white stretch limousine pulled up.

It was still raining.

“If I’d’ve known it was prom night,” Pixie said, “I would’ve worn a dress.”

They piled in. The arrangement felt involuntarily intimate, like they were strangers who somehow wound up sharing a long cab ride from the airport. But they weren’t strangers anymore, they were his comrades-in-arms now. Quentin wondered if their stories were as complicated as his was. He especially wondered about Plum. From what he knew of her story, it wasn’t supposed to end up here.