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"I was probably the fattest person they’d ever seen, but they didn’t care about that I think they thought it was hot Like itlike that They’d also never seenway I was kind of a celebrity for a while

"I started hanging out with this one girl, big-tiic thing And also I guess their menfolk weren’t especially well-endowed in the hardware aisle, if you take rasp the essence of it, yes," Quentin said

"Anyway she died Got killed It ful Really, really sad At first I wanted to stay and fight and try to get the people who killed her, but then I couldn’t do it It was all so stupid I just couldn’t get into the war thing the way they did, and that was shauess, so they kicked me out"

"God I’m sorry"

Poor Josh The way he talked all the tis But they were all there, if you dug deep enough

"No, it doesn’tto work out I think she wanted to die that way Those people weren’t that into life, orknow

"That’s when it all went to shit All the fun was gone I went to this kind of Greek world, all white cliffs and hot sun and dark seas I slept with a harpy there"

"You had rebound sex with a harpy?"

"I don’t know if that’s what she was Wings for arht"

"She practically took off in theeverywhere Way more trouble than it orth I still have a scar from where she clawed hed All the huray under the stubble Now Quentin saw those years that he’dfor basically was soht? Where I was the only dude in a world of chicks I know it’s out there They could even all have been lesbians, and I would just watch I’d be good hatever

"Anyway after that I started just sliding through worlds Worlds worlds worlds I stopped caring It was like when you’ve surfed too oing anyway I’d get to a world and io on to the next one As soon as I’d see one wrong thing--oh, this one has flies, or the sky is a weird color, or no beer, anything that wasn’t perfect--I’d bail

"Then one of those times I came back and the whole Neitherlands was busted"

"What? How do you mean, busted?"

"Broken Fucked up Do you know about this? If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it"

He drained his wineglass A man came to refill it, and Josh waved hiht it waslike that When my head broke the water that last time it was like the cold punched , and the as just whipping this dry powdery snow through the squares"

"How is that even possible?" Quentin said "I didn’t think the Neitherlands even had weather"

It made him think of that silent storm, the one that had thrashed the clock-tree back in Fillory Maybe it was the sa’s deeplybasic Like systes were in ruins It looked like the place had been bos just laid open to the sky Do you remember how Penny said once that they were all full of books? I think he was right, because the air was full of pages, blowing along through the city"

Josh shook his head

"I guess I should have grabbed a few, to see as on theht of it till after

"You knohat I was thinking about? Not dying I was pretty far froht warm clothes, but I ditched them when I met the harpy It was hot as hell there And she kinda tore at my clothes a lot of the time anyway

"So I was practically naked, and a lot of one too Some of them were leveled, soic there? A couple of tiht o to sleep I didn’t think I could go on I could have died, easily I was out there for about half an hour It’s a ht I wouldn’t make it"

"It’s incredible that you did" Good old Josh Just when you were ready to write hiear, and when he did he really was indomitable Like that tiiant with his black hole spell He’d probably outlive theure it out," Josh said "It was like somebody’d attacked the Neitherlands, or cursed it, except who could do that? I didn’t see anybody there It was just as eht ht maybe I’d see Penny"

"Yeah"

"I uy But it’d be nice to know he’s not dead"

"Yeah It would"

Quentin was already trying to calculate whether this h the Neitherlands It was still possible, in theory They’d just suit up for cold weather Bring an ice ax

"I always thought the Neitherlands were invulnerable," Quentin said "They felt like they were outside tied But it sounds like an earthquake hit them, an earthquake and a blizzard at the saht? What are the odds?"

"I don’t suppose you noticed whether the Fillory fountain was still there?" Quentin said "I thought o back that way Back to Fillory"

"No So you are going back? I didn’t exactly pop in while I was passing through But listen, I don’t know if you can go back that way anyway"