He sat back in the booth and allowed his eyes to glaze over. This was the moment that should have galvanized him into action, the moment that all those years at Brakebills had been leading up to, but instead he was letting go, sinking down into dysphoria. Whatever, if Penny wanted to take this over, let it be his show from now on. He had Alice, why shouldn’t he have Fillory, too? The time for clever thinking had passed anyway. The tree was clearly taking their bait, or they were taking its bait, or both. Either way, here it was, the adventure had arrived.

There was a time when this had been his most passionate hope, when it would have ravished him with happiness. It was just so weird, he thought sadly. Why now, when it was actually happening, did the seductions of Fillory feel so crude and unwanted? Its groping hands so clumsy? He thought he’d left this feeling behind long ago in Brooklyn, or at least at Brakebills. How could it have followed him here, of all places? How far did he have to run? If Fillory failed him he would have nothing left! A wave of frustration and panic surged through him. He had to get rid of it, break the pattern! Or maybe this was different, maybe there really was something off here. Maybe the hollowness was in Fillory, not in him?

He slid warily out of the booth, rubbing up against Humbledrum’s huge scratchy thigh on his way out, and visited the restroom, a malodorous pit-style affair. He thought for a second that he might be sick into it, and that maybe that wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world, but nothing happened.

When he got back, Penny had taken his seat. He took Penny’s place in the other booth and rested his chin in his hands and his hands on the table. If only they had drugs. Getting high in Fillory, that would really be the ultimate. Eliot had moved to the bar and appeared to be chatting up the horned man.

“What this land needs,” Farvel was saying, leaning into the table conspiratorially and inviting the others to do likewise, “is kings and queens. The thrones in Castle Whitespire have been empty for too long, and they can only be filled by the sons and daughters of Earth. By your kind. But”—he cautioned them, stirringly—“only the stout of heart could hope to win those seats, you understand. Only the stoutest of heart.”

Farvel looked on the verge of squeezing out a viscous, sappy tear. Jesus, what a speech. Quentin could practically have recited his lines for him.

Humbledrum farted mournfully, three distinct notes.

“So what would this involve, exactly?” Josh asked, in a tone of studied skepticism. “Winning, as you say, those seats?”