After a certain point it was no longer possible to ignore the fact that they were lost. The hallways wound fiendishly and branched frequently. They were in a maze, and they were not solving it. Dint had become obsessive about his map, which now stretched to half a dozen sheets of graph paper that he shuffled and scribbled on intently whenever they turned a corner. At Brakebills they’d learned a spell that would leave glowing footprints behind them, but Dint thought it would just lead predators straight to them. The walls were carved with ranks of crude marching figures in profile, thousands of them, each one holding a different totem: a palm leaf, a torch, a key, a sword, a pomegranate.

It was darker here. They kept piling on light spells to anything that would take one, but the glow just didn’t seem to go as far. They fast-walked down the corridor, double-time now. The mood was that of a picnic threatened by lightning. The corridor branched and branched again and intermittently dead-ended, forcing them to backtrack. Quentin’s feet hurt in his brand-new hiking boots; a stray spur of something hard stabbed him in the same spot on his left ankle every time he took a step.

He risked a glance back the way they’d come. There was a red glow back there—something somewhere in the maze was throwing off a deep crimson light. He felt a deep-seated lack of interest in finding out what it was.

Ten minutes later they got hung up at a fork in the passageway, Dint vigorously supporting the right fork, Josh making the case, admittedly largely on intangibles, that the other fork looked “way more promising” and just “feels more like what we want.” The walls were painted with oddly convincing trompe-l’oeil landscapes now, crowded with tiny dancing figures. Doors slammed open and shut in the distance.

The hallway was brightening behind them. They all saw it now. It was like a subterranean sun was rising. Discipline was getting ragged. They broke into a half run, and it was too dark for Quentin to be absolutely sure that nobody lagged behind. He focused on Alice. She was panting. The back of her blouse gaped palely open where the demon had torn its way out; he could see her black bra strap, which had somehow survived the operation. He wished he had a jacket to give her.

He caught up with Dint.

“We should slow down,” Quentin panted. “We’re going to lose somebody.”

Dint shook his head. “They’re tracking us now. If we stop, they’ll mob us.”

“What the fuck, man! Didn’t you plan for this?”

“This is the plan, Earth child,” Dint snarled back. “You don’t like it, go home. We need kings and queens in Fillory. Is that not a thing worth dying for?”

Not really, Quentin thought. Asshole. That slutty nymph was right. This is not your war.