The place felt off-limits, out of bounds. It was like they were hunting a minotaur in its maze. Quentin trailed one hand idly along a wall, and the smooth stone was cool and sticky with condensed moisture, something about the heating spells—it gave off a damp basement smell that brought back memories of the last time he’d been here, when they were all studying eighteen hours a day under Mayakovsky’s rule of silence. There was something he didn’t have to worry about at Brakebills South: nostalgia.

He was too hungry to feel anything anyway. They wound up in the kitchen, where they stuffed themselves on anything they could find that might possibly get the taste of bird beak out of their mouths. Quentin was keenly aware that Mayakovsky had no real reason to help them, even assuming he could. He’d always known he wouldn’t have much to offer by way of compensation, aside from an intellectually interesting problem and some shameless flattery and, he supposed, the strictly—strictly—platonic presence of a smart and pretty young woman. But somehow it had all been more convincing when they were first setting out.

They never heard Mayakovsky coming, he just appeared in the doorway, silent as a ghost, looking grim and hungover and unbathed. His stubble was slightly frostier, his gut more prominent, his nails yellower, but otherwise he was perfectly preserved. It was like Antarctica had freeze-dried him.

He didn’t kill them.

“Saw you coming,” he growled. “Miles away.”

He had on a dressing gown, unbelted, a white button-down shirt badly in need of bleach and a pair of very short, very un-professorial shorts.

“Professor Mayakovsky.” Quentin stood up brightly. “I apologize for intruding on your privacy like this, but we’re working on an interesting problem, and we could use your help with it.”

Mayakovsky sawed the end off a stale loaf of bread with an unwashed knife, spread about an inch of soft, unrefrigerated butter on it and began to eat standing up. It was pretty clear he wasn’t going to throw the ball back, so Quentin kept going: he explained about incorporate bonds, and what they were trying to do, and why he, Mayakovsky, alone among all practitioners of the arts invisible, could give them the assistance they so desperately needed. Mayakovsky chewed steadily and noisily, gazing into the distance with watery, rapidly blinking eyes.

When Quentin was done Mayakovsky swallowed, sighed, his round shoulders rising and then falling under his robe, and left the room. He came back with a piece of paper and a blunt pencil. He swept some crumbs onto the floor and put them down in front of Quentin.

“Write eet down,” he said. He pointed at Plum. “You. Make coffee.”

Plum made a monster face at him behind his back. Quentin turned up his palms: what are you gonna do? She made a monster face at him too.