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They filed out onto the narrow balcony In the castle courtyard far below, at the bottoathered Froht they looked unreal, like dolls Quentin waved

"I e could do so more for them," he said

"What do you want to do?" Eliot said "We’re the kings and queens of a ic utopia"

Cheers drifted up from far below, faintly The sound was tinny and far away--it had the audio quality of a ressive refor If I were a Fillorian I would depose me as an aristocratic parasite"

When Quentin and the others took the thrones, they hadn’t known exactly what to expect The details of as involved were vague--there would be some ceremonial duties, Quentin supposed, and presu, some responsibility for the welfare of the nation they ruled But the truth was that there just wasn’twas that Quentinlike land, at least on casual inspection He figured he’d just use European history, to the extent that he remehtened hureatest hits only, and go down in history as a force for good

But Fillory wasn’t England For one thing the population was tiny--there couldn’t have been more than ten thousand hu aniiants and such So he and the other monarchs--or tetrarchs, whatever--were ic was very real on Earth, Fillory was ic was part of the ecosystem It was in the weather and the oceans and the soil, which ildly fertile If you wanted your crops to fail you had to work pretty hard at it

Fillory was a land of hyperabundance Anything that needed otten from the dwarves, sooner or later, and they weren’t an oppressed industrial proletariat, they actually enjoyed s Unless you were an actively despicable tyrant, the way Martin Chatwin had been, there were just tooe that the Fillorian econoes

As a result whenever any of the Brakebills--as they were called, even though Julia had never even been to Brakebills, as she wasn’t slow to point out--tried to get serious about so, there turned out not to be much to be serious about It was all ritual and pomp and circumstance Even money was just for show It was toy iven up on trying to o Maybe that hat had been nagging at hie of thatreal soet his hands on it

"All right," he said "What next?"

"Well," Eliot said, as they filed back inside "There is this situation with the Outer Island"

"The where?"

"The Outer Island" He picked up so of it, and even I don’t knohere it is"

Janet snorted "Outer is off the east coast Way off, a couple of days’ sail God, I can’t believe they even let you be king It’s the easternmost point in the Fillorian Empire I think"

Eliot peered at the map painted on the table "I don’t see it"

Quentin studied the map too On his first visit to Fillory he’d sailed deep into the Western Sea, on the other side of the Fillorian continent, but his knowledge of the east was pretty sketchy

"It’s not big enough" She pointed to Julia’s lap "That’s where it would be if we had a bigger table"

Quentin tried to iine it: a little slip of white tropical sand, embellished with a decorative palreen calm

"Have you been there?" Eliot said

"No one’s ever been there It’s just a dot on thecolony there after his ship collided with it like aabout the Outer Island?"

Eliot went back to his papers "Looks like they haven’t paid their taxes in a couple of years"

"So?" Janet said "Probably that’s because they don’t have any ram," Quentin said "DEAR OUTER ISLANDERS STOP SEND MONEY STOP IF YOU HAVE NO MONEY THEN DO NOT SEND MONEY STOP"

The ed while Eliot and Janet tried to outdo each other in coraht," Eliot said The turning tower had rotated to where the fla Fillorian sunset lit up the sky behind him Ladders of pink cloud were stacked up above his shoulders "I’ll lean on the Fenwicks about Jollyby Janet will speak to the Lorians" He waved vaguely "And so about the Outer Island Who wants scotch?"

"I’ll go," Quentin said

"It’s just there on the sideboard"

"No, I o there I’ll see about the taxes"

"What?" Eliot sounded annoyed by the idea "Why? It’s the ass end of nowhere And anyway, it’s a treasury matter We’ll send an emissary That’s what emissaries are for"

"Send me instead"

Quentin couldn’t have said what the i He thought of the circular meadow and the broken clock-tree and the filain What was the point of all this when you could just drop dead, just like that? That’s what he wanted to know What was even the fucking point?

"You know," Janet said, "we’re not invading it We don’t need to send a king to the Outer Island They haven’t paid their taxes, which by the way is like eight fish They’re not exactly powering the whole economy"

"I’ll be back before you know it" He could already tell he’d gotten it right The tension inside hih him, at what he didn’t even know "Who knows, "

This would be his quest: collecting taxes from a bunch of backwater yokels He had skipped the adventure of the broken tree, and that was fine He would have this one instead

"Could look weak, with the Jollyby thing" Eliot fingered his royal chin "You taking off at the first sign of trouble"