“We won?” He was incredulous. He couldn’t hold back anymore. All the grief and guilt he’d been salting away so carefully was coming back to him as anger. The ice was cracking. The pond was boiling. “We won? You have a damn time machine in your pocket, and that’s the best you could do? You set us up, Jane, or whoever the fuck you are. We thought we were going on an adventure, and you sent us on a suicide mission, and now my friends are dead. Alice is dead.” Here he had to swallow hard before he could go on. “Is that really the best you could do?”

She dropped her eyes to the floor. “I am sorry.”

“You’re sorry.” The woman was unbelievable. “Good. Show me how sorry you are. Take me back. Use the watch, we’ll go back in time. We’ll do it all again. Let’s go back and fix this.”

“No, Quentin,” she said gravely. “We can’t go back.”

“What do you mean, no? We can go back. We can and we will!”

He was talking at her louder and louder, staring at her, as if by talking and staring he could force her into doing what he needed her to do. She had to! And if talking wouldn’t do it, he could make her. She was a small woman, and apart from that watch he was willing to bet that he was twice the magician she’d ever be.

She was shaking her head sadly.

“You have to understand.” She didn’t back away. She spoke softly, as if she could soothe him, placate him into forgetting what she’d done. “I’m a witch, I’m not a god. I’ve tried this so many ways. I’ve gone down so many different timelines. I’ve sent so many other people to fight Martin. Don’t make me lecture you on the practicalities of chronological manipulation, Quentin. Change one variable and you change them all. Did you think you were the first one to face Martin in that room? Do you think that was even the first time you faced him? That battle has been fought again and again. I’ve tried it so many different ways. Everyone always died. And I always wound back the clock.

“As bad as it was, as bad as it is, this is by far the best outcome I’ve ever achieved. No one ever stopped him but you and your friends, Quentin. You were the only ones. And I’m sticking with it. I can’t risk losing everything we’ve gained.”

Quentin folded his arms. Muscles were jumping in his back. He was practically vibrating with fury. “Well, then. We’ll go back all the way. To before The World in the Walls. Stop him before it all starts. Find a timeline where he doesn’t even go to Fillory.”