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Eliot cli Julia up behind hiood There was still a large patch of damp black earth on Julia’s rump from the fall Quentin had a foot in Dauntless’s stirrup when they heard a shout

"Hi!"

They all looked around

"Hi!" It hat Fillorians said instead of "hey"

The Fillorian saying it was a hale, vigorous ht across the circular clearing, practically radiating exuberance He broke into a jog at the sight of thenored the branches of the broken clock-tree that aving wildly over his head; he couldn’t have cared less Just another day in thechest, and he’d grown a big blond beard to cover up his somewhat moony round chin

It was Jollyby, Master of the Hunt He wore purple-and-yellow striped tights His legs really were pretty i that he’d never even been in the sa press or a StairMaster or whatever Eliot was right, hethem the whole time

"Hi!" Janet shouted back happily "Now it’s a party," she added to the others, sotto voce

In one huge leather-gloved fist Jollyby held up a large,hare by its ears

"Son of a bitch," Dauntless said "He caught it"

Dauntless was a talking horse She just didn’t talk ," Jollyby called out when he was close enough "I found hi up on a rock, happy as you please, not a hundred yards froot hiht him with my bare hands Would you believe it?"

Quentin would believe it Though he still didn’t think it made sense How do you sneak up on an animal that can see the future? Maybe it saw other people’s but not its own The hare’s eyes rolled wildly in their sockets

"Poor thing," Eliot said "Look how pissed off it is"

"Oh, Jolly," Janet said She crossed her are "You should have let us catch it! Now it’ll only tell your future"

She sounded not at all disappointed by this, but Jollyby--a superb all-around huntsman but no National Merit Scholar--looked vexed His furry brows furrowed

"Maybe we could pass it around," Quentin said "It could do each of us in turn"

"It’s not a bong, Quentin," Janet said

"No," Julia said "Do not ask it"

But Jollyby was enjoying his moment as the center of royal attention

"Is that true, you useless ani Hare and hoisted it up so that he and the hare were nose to nose

It gave up kicking and hung down limp, its eyes blank with panic It was an i nose to its tail, with a fine gray-brown coat the color of dry grass in winter It wasn’t cute This was not a taician’s rabbit It was a wild animal

"What do you see then, eh?" Jollyby shook it, as if this were all its idea and therefore its fault "What do you see?"

The Seeing Hare’s eyes focused It looked directly at Quentin It bared its huge orange incisors

"Death," it rasped

They all stood there for a second It didn’t seem scary so much as inappropriate, like somebody had made a dirty joke at a child’s birthday party

Then Jollyby frowned and licked his lips, and Quentin saw blood in his teeth He coughed once, experi it out, and then his head lolled forward The hare dropped frorass like a rocket

Jollyby’s corpse fell forward onto the grass

"Death and destruction!" the hare called out as it ran, in case it hadn’t made itself clear before "Disappointment and despair!"

CHAPTER 2

There was a special roos and queensyou had was made specially for you

It was a marvelous room It was square, the top of a square toith four s facing in four directions The tower turned, very slowly, as some of the towers in the castle did--Castle Whitespire was built on complicated foundations of enorned by the dwarves, ere absolute geniuses at that kind of thing The tower completed one rotation every day The movement was almost imperceptible

In the center of the room was a special square table with four chairs--they were thrones, or thronelike, but made by someone who had the knack, pretty rare in Quentin’s experience, ofchairs that looked like thrones but were also reasonably comfortable to sit in The table was painted with a map of Fillory, sealed under many layers of lacquer, and at each of the four seats, pieced into the wood, were the na with little devices appropriate to said rulers Quentin got an i, and the vanquished Martin Chatwin, and a deck of playing cards Eliot’s place was theIt was a square table, but there wasn’t any question which side was the head

The chairs didn’t feel comfortable today The scene of Jollyby’s death was still very clear and present in Quentin’s mind’s eye; in fact it replayed itself s every thirty seconds or so As Jollyby collapsed Quentin had lurched forward and caught hiroped helplessly at Jollyby’s huge chest, as if he’d hidden his life somewhere about his person, in some secret inside pocket, and if Quentin could only find it he could give it back to him Janet screamed: a full-throated, uncontrollable horror-movie screarasped her shoulders and physically turned her away fro filled with ghostly green light--a bleak, alien spell of Julia’s that Quentin still didn’t get the details of, or even the broad outlines of, that was intended to reveal any bad actors who ht be present It turned her eyes all black, no whites or iris at all She was the only one who’d thought to go on the attack But there was no one to attack

"All right," Eliot said "So let’s talk about it What do we think happened today?"