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Julia rolled doas left of the brokenso that it didn’t look so broken

"How the hell did you do that?" he said

"You know about hot-wiring?" she said "That is ‘not-wiring’ That is e used to call it, in the old days"

"In what old days did you go around stealing cars? And who is ‘we’?"

She didn’t answer, just took a corner too fast, so that the car heeled over on its ridiculously too-bouncy suspension

"That was a stop sign," Quentin said "I still think we should go to Brakebills"

"We are going to Brakebills"

"You changed your mind"

"It happens" Her thu She sucked it and wiped it on her pants "Can you drive?"

"No I never learned"

Julia swore She turned up the radio

It was four hours froet to Brakebills by car Julia did it in three They shot west across Massachusetts the long hipping along old New England interstates that had been cut through pine forests and blasted through low green hills, the sides of which showed bare red rock The rock faces were slick ater fro

The sun set The car s was toxic and chehts, the burning gasoline that was shoving them forward This whole world was a processed petroleum product Julia kept the radio on classic rock the whole way It would be an exaggeration to say that she knew every single lyric of every single song that came on, but not by much

They crossed the Hudson River at Beacon, New York, and turned off the interstate onto a two-lane local highinding and hu they didn’t speak Quentin was still trying to make sense of what had just happened to theht, so Julia showed hi-swarlasses for her, to hide her weird eyes, and they spent the night--separate rooms--at aabout their clothes, but no dice

In the enuine hot shower in an actual Western-style bathroom Score one for reality He stayed there till all the sea salt was finally out of his hair, even though the tub was made of plastic and there were spiders in the corners and it reeked of detergents and "fresheners" By the time he cleaned up, checked out, and harvested a bona fide actual sixteen-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola fro on the hood of their car

She’d skipped the shower, but she’d doubled up on the Coke The car spit gravel on its way out of the parking lot

"I thought you did not knohere it was," Julia said "That hat you told me when I asked you"

"I told you that," Quentin said, "because it’s true I don’t knohere it is But I think there’s a way to find it At least I know someone who did it once"

He h school senior, so they ought to be able toto follow in her footsteps

"We’ll have to walk a couple of h the woods," he said

"That does not bother me"

"A vision spell should reveal it It’s veiled, but just to keep civilians out There’s an Anasazi spell Or Mann Maybe just a Mann reveal"

"I know the Anasazi"

"Okay Great Then I’ll let you knohen"

Quentin kept his tone carefully neutral Nothingcondescended to by a Brakebills graduate At least she wasn’t bla them shunted back to Earth Or probably she was, but she wasn’t doing it out loud

It was a hot late August ht A lie blue Hudson River They parked at a bend in the road

He got that it hurt her pride, and ed back to Brakebills begging for help It didn’t change the fact that it was their first and best and possibly only option He was not fucking staying on Earth He wanted a quest? Now he had one The quest was to get back to where he hen he started his goddaood