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A distant bugle sounded--three polished sterling silver notes,a recheat, a hunting call

He was no Jollyby, but it was a perfectly credible recheat He wasn’t islation, but Eliot wasall the Fillorian hunting protocol exactly right (Though he found any actual killing distasteful, and usually h for Dauntless She trerinned at Janet, and she grinned back at him He yelled like a cowboy and kicked and they were off

It was insanely dangerous, like a full-on land-speeder chase, with ditches opening up in front of you with no warning, and low branches reaching down out of nowhere to try to clobber your head off (not literally of course, though you could never tell for sure with some of these older, ic is for Dauntless was a thoroughbred They’d been starting and stopping and dicking around allto cut loose

And how often did he get a chance to put his royal person at risk? When was the last tiht with peril They lay around on cushions all day and ate and drank their heads off all night Lately whenever he sat down so between his abdoained fifteen pounds since he took the throne No wonder kings looked so fat in pictures One minute you’re Prince Valiant, the next you’re Henry VIII

Janet broke trail, guided by ly solid beats on the packed loa about court life, all the safety and the relentless comfort, went away for a moment Trunks and spinneys and ditches and old stone walls whipped and blurred past They dodged in and out of hot sun and cool shade Their speed froze the falling sprays of yellow leaves in midair Quentin picked hisout wide to the right, and for a longin parallel

Then all at once Janet pulled up Quickly as he could Quentin slowed Dauntless to a walk and brought her around, breathing hard He hoped her horse hadn’t pulled up lame It took him anotherstill and straight in the saddle, squinting off into the le calls

"What is it?"

"Thought I saw so," she said

Quentin squinted too There was so?" Janet said

Quentin dropped down out of the saddle, unslung his bow again and nocked another arrow Janet led the horses while he walked in front He could hear her charging up soht ward-and-shield, just in case He could feel the familiar staticky buzz of it

"Shit," he said under his breath

He dropped the bow and ran toward theainst her chest, either gasping or sobbing, he couldn’t tell which Eliot was bent over talking to her quietly His clothof-gold jacket had been yanked half off his shoulder

"It’s okay," he said, seeing Quentin’s white face "That fucking civet threw her and bolted I tried to hold it but I couldn’t She’s okay, she just got the wind knocked out of her"

"You’re all right" That phrase again Quentin rubbed Julia’s back while she took croaking breaths "You’re okay I always said you should get a regular horse I never liked that thing"

"Never liked you, either," she ht "That’s what made it bolt The hare went in there"

A few yards away a round clearing began, a still pool of grass hidden in the heart of the forest The trees grew right up to its edge and then stopped, like so out the border precisely It could have been ruled with a compass Quentin picked his way toward it Lush, intensely erew over lule enore round clock set in its trunk

The clock-trees were the legacy of the Watcherwo witch of Fillory They were a n as far as anyone could tell, and picturesque in a surreal way There was no reason to get rid of the else they kept perfect time

But Quentin had never seen one like this He had to lean back to see its crown It must have been a hundred feet tall, and it was massively thick, at least fifteen yards around at its base Its clock was stupendous The face was taller than Quentin was The trunk erupted out of the green grass and burst into a ly branches, like a kraken sculpted in wood

And it wasIts black, nearly leafless liray sky The tree seerip of a storm, but Quentin couldn’t feel or hear any wind The day, the day he could perceive with his five senses, was calible storled its clock--the wood had clenched it so tightly that the bezel had finally bent, and the crystal had shattered Brass clockwork spilled out through the clock’s busted face and down onto the grass

"Jesus Christ," Quentin said "What aBen of clock-trees," Janet said behind him

"I’ve never seen one like that," Eliot said "Do you think it was the first one she made?"

Whatever it was, it was a Fillorian wonder, a real one, wild and grand and strange It was a long ti ti he hadn’t felt since E the mystery in the face This was the raw stuff, theout along the edge of the le froer A yard froears had fallen, as if froale A silver pocket watch ticked away in a knot in its slender trunk A typically cute Fillorian touch

This was going to be good

"I’ll go first"

Quentin started forward, but Eliot put a hand on his arm

"I wouldn’t"

"I would Why not?"

"Because clock-trees don’t just move like that And I’ve never seen a broken one before I didn’t think they could break This isn’t a natural place The hare ht? It’s classic!"

Julia shook her head She looked pale, and there was a dead leaf in her hair, but she was back on her feet

"See how regular the clearing is," she said "It is a perfect circle Or at least an ellipse There is a powerful area-effect spell radiating out from the center Or from the foci," she added quietly, "in the case of an ellipse"

"You go in there, there’s no telling where you’ll end up," Eliot said