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She didn’t look like she needed help Quentin found the stairs up to the top floor He kicked open the first door he saw and almost died when a massive fireball rolled over hi Soy into it It enveloped hih the fireproofing spell But the spell held When the fire had dissipated his li in the doorway of a darkened library Inside, sitting at a desk with two lanterns on it, was a skeleton in a nice brown suit Or not quite a skeleton, a man, but an obviously dead one He still had flesh on him, but it had shrunk and turned leathery

It was very still in the library Bookshelves smoldered and crackled quietly on either side of Quentin, from the fireball The corpse watched him with eyes like hard dry nuts

"No?" it said finally Its voice buzzed and flapped, a blown-out speaker It obviously didn’t have much left in the way of vocal cords So after its sell-by date "Well That was ’s face was immobile, unreadable Its dried lips didn’t cover its teeth completely It wasn’t pretty to look at, but for sohting again? For a second Quentin really couldn’t reotten too far ahead of the others But no, this was on hiht

The corpse ca knife at him with one skinny, loose-jointed marionette arm Quentin ducked, purely out of instinct, but it was a wild throhere near hih the open door behind hiht," it said "Now I’hed

"Where’s the key?" Quentin said "You have one, don’t you?" For a terrible second he worried that itanymore," the corpse said wheezily It pushed a small wooden box toward him with one shriveled hand The skin had worn off some of the knuckles, like the leather off the arhter’s"

"Your daughter’s," Quentin repeated "Who are you?"

"Don’t you know the story?" It sighed again It seened to its fate than Quentin expected He didn’t know if it had to breathe anymore, but apparently it could still suck air in and out of its leathery chest like a bellohen it wanted to "I thought everybody knew it"

Now that he’d stoppedhe realized he was covered with sweat It was cold in the nightti to tell me you’re him The man from the fairy tale The Seven Golden Keys"

"Is that what they’re calling it? A fairy tale?" Air hissed between its teeth Was that laughter? "I suppose it’s a little late to quibble about things like that"

"I don’t understand I thought you were one of the good guys"

"We can’t all be heroes Then ould the heroes fight? It’s a matter of numbers really Just work out the suave you?" Quentin had a terrible feeling he’d grasped the wrong end of so "That’s what the story said You set her free, froave you the key"

"That was no witch, that was her hter Only its lower jawto an animatronic president at a theme park "I left them to look for the Seven Keys I suppose I wanted to be a hero They never forgave hter didn’t know me Her mother told her I was dead

"The key keptit like this It’s terrible living in a dead body, I can’t feel anything You should see how the others look at olden key lay inside it He was part of the fairy tale now, he supposed He’d crashed through a shared wall into an adjoining story Enter the Magician King

"Just tell me," the corpse said "What is it for? I never knew"

"I don’t know either I’lance back Just Bingle, catching up at last

"Don’t be sorry You’ve paid for it You paid the price" The life had started going out of it as soon as it let go of the box It slu It muttered the last words directly into the wooden desktop "Like ain

Quentin snapped the box shut He heard Bingle walk in beside hiether they stared at the dome of the corpse’s head, which was as bald and le said

"I don’t think I killed hiood" He must have picked that up fro rapidly toward noruely aware that he was giving off a nasty burnt-hair s hadn’t been perfect

"It was that man," Quentin said "The one from the fairy tale But his version was different How did you know to co fish It told us what to do It had a bottle in its belly, with a map inside What happened to you?"

"Eether they walked back down the hall toward the stairs, Bingle eyeing every doorway and alcove for holdouts and dead-enders

They’d done it: another key found One to go Quentin was on the scoreboard They --"We did it!"--and a silent, still-fluorescent Julia wandering the halls Quentin showed theed the hiht froht, they had done it, and Quentin had led the way He held on to that victorious feeling, weighed it in his hands, felt its war sure he would always reler out from behind a curtain, but he’d already laid down his weapons He didn’t have a lot of fancy ideas about dying for lost causes