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That was all fine But Fillory wasn’t doing its part It wasn’t giving up the key All the wonders see In the past week they had reached heretofore unknown islands, stepped out onto virgin beaches, infiltrated choked , but no keys presented the Soone out of the air: a tautness had gone slack, an electric charge had dissipated Quentin racked his brain to think what it was

Also it wouldn’t stop raining

After theQuentin forced himself to take a break He lay down in his daate its way through the clammy, tepid bedclothes It was too late to take a nap and too early to go to sleep Outside histhe sun was dropping over the rim of the world, or it must have been, but you couldn’t tell Sky and ocean were indistinguishable froray of a brand-new Etch A Sketch the knobs of which hadn’t yet been twiddled

He stared out at it, gnawing the edge of his thumb, a bad habit left over from childhood, his mind adrift in the emptiness

Somebody spoke

"Quentin"

He opened his eyes He must have fallen asleep The as dark now

"Quentin," the voice said again He hadn’t dreamed it The voice was entle voice, soft and androgynous and vaguely familiar It didn’t sound completely human Quentin looked around the cabin, but he was alone

"Who are you?" he said

"I’ in the floor I’otten it was even on board

"Sloth? Is that you?" Did it have a naht like to pay iven the sloth that idea The Muntjac’s hold was dark and se, and for that matter it s to the sloth just where he was Or not talking to it at all

And Jesus, if he could hear the sloth that clearly itthat happened in this cabin since they’d left Whitespire

But he did feel bad about the sloth He hadn’t paid very much attention to it Frankly it was a tiny bit of a bore But he owed it so animals, and it arm down in the hold, and it wasn’t like he had sohed and peeled the bedclothes off himself and fetched a candle and found the ladder that went down below

The hold was emptier than he remembered it A year at sea would have that effect Black water sloshed around in a channel that ran along the floor The sloth was a weird-looking beast, ray fur It hung upside down by its ropy arms at about eye level, its thick curved claws hooked up over a wooden beaone too far The usual pile of fruit rinds and sloth droppings lay below it in an untidy heap

"Hi," Quentin said

"Hello"

The sloth raised its s at Quentin right-side up The position looked unconed for it It had black bands of fur over its eyes that gave it a sleepy, raccoony look

It squinted at the light from Quentin’s candle

"I’m sorry I haven’t been down to see you very often," Quentin offered

"It’s all right, I don’t mind I’m not a very social aniail"

She was a girl sloth Quentin hadn’t realized A hard wooden chair had been brought down to the hold, presu their conversation with the sloth so much that he or she just had to sit down to enjoy it even more

"And you’ve been very busy," she added charitably

A long silence ensued Once in a while the sloth , Quentin wasn’t sure what, with its blunt yellow teeth It must be somebody’s job to come down here and feed it Her

"Do you mind if I ask," Quentin said finally, "why you cae? I’ve alondered"

"I don’t ail the Sloth said calht we should send someone The Council of Anireat deal, and I don’t move around very much I enjoy my solitude In a way I am hardly in this world at all, so it doesn’t veryaniht you’d be insulted if we didn’t take one of you along"

"We thought you’d be insulted if we didn’t send so the world is, is it not?"

It sure was

The sloth didn’t find the long silences aard Maybe animals didn’t experience aardness the way hu in its tree," the sloth said, apropos of nothing "Often well into the process of decoely

"I did not know that"

It wasn’t an easy ball to throw back

"This is by way of telling you so about the way sloths live It is different from the way humans live, and even from the way other aniht say We suspend ourselves between the earth and the sky, touching neither OurIn a sense we live on the borderline between life and death"

"That is very different froe to you, but it is where we feel most comfortable"

The sloth seemed like so me this?" he said "Ithe connection Is this about the key? Do you have an idea about how to find it?"

He didn’t knoon above deck Maybe she didn’t even know they were on a quest

"It is not about the key," Abigail said in her liquid, unhurried voice "It is about Benedict Fenwick"

"Benedict? What about him?"

"Would you like to speak with him?"

"Well, sure Of course But he’s dead He died teeks ago"

It was still as unthinkable, alht

"There are paths that are closed to s that are open to a sloth"