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It was a beast of a clock, with a big fat brass face orbited by four s the ns of the zodiac and God knehat else, all framed in plain, uncarved dark wood The works hteenth-century equivalent of a supercomputer The as the wood of a Fillorian sunset tree, it said in the book, which shed its flae leaves every day at sundown, endured a leafless winter overnight, and then sprouted fresh green new ones at dawn

Quentin, Julia, Josh, and Poppy gathered around it It was like they were re-enacting a Fillory book--no, they were in one, a new one, and they riting it together The pendulu Quentin wondered if the connection could still be live, or whether it had broken after the children went through He couldn’t feel anything But it had to work, he wouldback to Fillory if he had to cra piece of cabinetry in this house

Even so it was going to be a tight fit Maybe if he breathed out all his air and wriggled through sideways Not how he planned to make his triumphant return to Fillory, but at this point he’d take whatever worked

"Quentin," Josh said

"Yeah"

"Quentin, look at me"

He had to tear his eyes away froravity that didn’t suit hiht?"

He did know He’d just let his were different now They weren’t kids Josh was part of a different story

"Yeah," Quentin said "I guess I do know Thanks for co this far What about you, Poppy? Chance of a lifeti me" She seemed to mean it, to take it in the spirit in which it was offered She put a hand on her chest "But I’ve got o to Fillory"

Quentin looked at Julia, who’d taken off her shades in deference to the glooether they stepped forward Quentin got down on one knee The roar of their iot up close he could see that it wasn’t going to work The thing wasn’t ticking, but more than that it just looked too solid The clock hat it was and nothing more--it was brute, mundane matter, wood and lass case and looked in at the hanging pendulu there ione out of it

It was dark in here He reached in and rapped the back of the case with his knuckles Nothing He closed his eyes

"Goddamn it," he said

Nevertrees Though at thata tree than he’d ever felt like doing anything in his entire life

"You’re doing it wrong, you know"

Their heads turned in unison It was a little kid’s voice, a boy He was standing at the end of the corridor in his pajaht years old

"What a first," the boy said "It says in the book But it doesn’t work anymore, I tried it"

The boy had fine tousled brown hair and blue eyes A lish ht down to his having a spot of trouble pronouncing his l’s and r’s He could have been cloned frooing to send it to the shop, but she never does I cli Lots of them actually D’you want to see?"

They stared at hi himself rebuffed, he walked over on bare feet He had that dislish children have Just looking at hiaon we found in the garage" He said it garage "It’s not the same as a bicycle, but I had to try it"

"I can see that," Quentin said "I can see where you would have to do that"

"But we can keep looking though," he said "I like it My name’s Thomas"

He actually held out his little paw for Quentin to shake, like a tiny alien ambassador Poor kid It wasn’t his fault He lected by his parents that he had taken to press-ganging rando attention to hiirl on the Outer Island

The really awful thing was that Quentin was going to go along with it, and not for the right reasons He took the proffered paw It wasn’t that he felt bad for Thoh he did It was that Thoot into Fillory by theic button It was always the kids What Quentin needed, he realized, was a native guide to act as bait Maybe if he let young Tho ahead of hiht flush out a portal or two He was going to use Thoet me a drink," Quentin said to Josh as Thorabbed her hand Theto travel alone

It e froht the Chatwin house a couple of years ago from the children of Fiona Chatwin; Thoh some connection that Quentin couldn’t follow, distantly related to Plover Maybe that here the money came from Thomas had been simply mad with excitement when he heard the news Weren’t all his friends at school jealous! Of course now he had all new friends, because before he’d been in London, and now they were in Cornwall But his friends here were ht about the Rainforest Life exhibit at the zoo Had Quentin ever been to the zoo in London? If he could choose, would he be an Asian lion or a Suer? And did he know that there was a monkey called a red titi monkey? It wasn’t rude, you could say it because it was a real kind of ree that, under certain extreme circumstances, the murder of children was coine, they toured the grounds As a threesome they conducted a deep-cavity search of the top floor, including closets and attics They reen behind the house, with special attention paid to rodent burrows and spooky trees and copses large enough for a huround railroad of gin-and-tonics, handing them off to Quentin whenever he happened to pass by, like a spectator handing Gatorade to a marathoner

It could have been worse The view frorander than the front An orderly English estate had been hacked out of the rough Cornish countryside bypool that by so anachronistic Beyond it a perfect Constable vista rolled down and away, green hills and fallow hay fields and pocket villages, all slowly dissolving in the viscous light of a golden English sunset