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"Down the road," Quentin repeated

Right Of course The golden key is down the road Where else would it be? He wondered where this feeling was co his part in a play that everybody else had a script for

"Aye, we know it" He jerked his head "Down t’road"

"All right Down the road it is Well, thank you very much"

He wondered if it was ever warm and sunny here, or if they lived in the perland November Did they know they were three days’ sail from a tropical zone?

The travelers set off down the road They would have looked nobler if they’d been riding horses instead of ing through the mud like a bunch of peasants, but the Muntjac wasn’t set up for horses Maybe they could hire local horses Shaggy, sturdy ponies resigned to always being cold and da sleek and beautiful He ed to cobbles, rounded cubes that turned slick and ankle-breaking in the drizzle It wasn’tfor a quest or an adventure or even an errand Maybe Bingle was right, maybe they were justnotes the way he usually did

"I’ll just remember it," he said

There you had it: an island not even Benedict would bother toroad The last building on it was a stone building like a church, though it wasn’t a church, just a boxy structure two stories high, built up out of flat gray local stones, unmortared It had a blank façade that looked unfinished, or maybe whatever ornamentation had once been there had been stripped away

Quentin felt like the little boy at the beginning of The Lorax, at the mysterious tower of the dis down bellowed challenges fro thorny theological dile the diabolical te off seasonal affective disorder

If he’d had to put his finger on it he would have said thatIt was too soon They shouldn’t have found it this quick, nor should they obtain it without a fight

But fuck it Maybe he was just lucky Maybe it was destiny In spite of everything, he felt a rising excitement This was it The doors were enormous and made of oak, but there was a smaller, man-sized door set in one of the open an entire grand double-height oaken portal The dooras flanked by empty niches for statuary, past or future but not present

They straggled to a stop in front of it, a brave cohts assembled before the Chapel Perilous Which of the His hair et froe to face whatever suffering was available for him to face, and that was a cold drizzle He and Julia sniffled at the saet in out of the wet It was no warmer inside than outside The ater had stepped away for a few ht h s A collection of rusty gardening implements resided in one corner: a hoe, a shovel, a rake

In the center of the room stood a stone table, and on the stone table lay a worn red velvet pillow, and on the pillow lay a golden key, with three teeth

Next to it was a yellowed slip of paper on which was neatly printed:

GOLDEN KEY

The key wasn’t bright, and it wasn’t tarnished It had the deep nity was undisturbed by its hus--the stillness in the room seemed to come froh to take it seriously Like soe with a cannon as a war monument, and no one realizes it still has a live round in the chale picked up the key

"Jesus!" Quentin said "Careful"

The guy le turned it over in his hands, exa happened

Quentin realized as going on He’d been given a do-over He was back on the edge of thatin There wasfat and safe and warm in a clockwork luxury resort Orto find out And how did you find out? You had an adventure That’s how You picked up a golden key

"Let me see it," he said

Satisfied that it wasn’t lethal, or at least not instantly, Bingle passed it to Quentin It didn’t buzz, and it didn’t glow It didn’t come alive in his hand It felt cool and heavy, but not cooler and heavier than he iolden key should feel

"Quentin," Julia said "There is old ic on that key A lot of it I can feel it"

"Good"

He grinned at her He felt elated

"You do not have to do this"

"I know But I want to do this"

"Quentin"

"What?"

Julia offered him her hand God bless Julia Whatever else she had lost she still had a hell of a lot of human kindness inside her He took her hand, and with the other he felt around in the air with the key Maybe if he--? Yes He felt it click against so that wasn’t there

He lost it for a second--he waved the key around but couldn’t find it And then he had it again, the clack ofon it, then pushed and it slipped in, ratcheting past an invisible tuo of it It stayed there: a golden key suspended in round

"Yes," he whispered "This"

He took a breath, tre, which was to place the point of his sword on the ground and drop to one knee Quentin gripped the key again and turned it clockwise Running on instinct, he felt for a doorknob and found it--he could picture it in his mind’s eye, cold white porcelain He turned it and pulled and an i sound filled the roo of a seal that had been intact for centuries, waiting to be breached Julia’s soft hand tightened on his Air rushed fro, and hot light flooded over hih for hiht in there, and there array stone of the After Island looked insubstantial This hat he’d been --call it adventure or whatever you wanted to He wondered if he was going somewhere in Fillory or sorass, leading Julia through after hian to adjust

"Wait," he said "This can’t be it"

He lunged back for the doorway, but it was already gone There was nothing to lunge through, no way back, just eht hi both his palms on the warm concrete sidewalk in front of his parents’ house in Chesterton, Massachusetts

BOOK II

CHAPTER 9

"Okay," he said "Okay It’s disappointing" He sat on the curb, elbows on his knees, staring up at the power lines, and attempted to reason with himself His scraped hands smarted and throbbed It felt like late sum else that looked weird, after two years in Fillory