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He should have expected it She’d been one of his guides on their trip down into Eood one, the one who didn’t betray them He barely knew her in life, but she was unmistakable, with her fishy lips and her short dykey haircut The last ti siiant made of red-hot iron Now she looked as healthy as she ever had, if a little wan, playing a slow-paced, low-pressure ganized him she didn’t show it

Now he allowed hi not to wonder ever since the sloth first brought it up: whether Alice was here Part of hi if one of the faces in the crowd could just belong to her Another part of him hoped that she wasn’t here She was a niffin now Maybe that counted as still alive

There were big , and Benedict was sitting leaning against one of theaed in front of hih it was pretty obvious he wasn’t stuck He could put a red five of diamonds on a six of clubs

He looked more like the Benedict Quentin had first met in the map room, than the suntanned bravo he’d become on board the Muntjac He was pale and thin-ar over his eyes His hair had grown back He looked like a sullen Caravaggio youth Death er

Quentin stopped

"Hello, Benedict"

"Hello," Julia said

Benedict’s eyes flicked over to Quentin, then back to the distance

"I know you can’t take me with you," he said quietly

The dead didn’t ht," Quentin said "I can’t That’s what the sloth said"

"So why did you coly Quentin had worried that he would have a gaping wound in his neck, but it was shost, Quentin reain"

Quentin sat down next to hiainst the pillar too Julia sat down on his other side Together the three of thes of dead people

A period of time passed, maybe five minutes, maybe an hour It was hard to keep track in the underworld Quentin would have to watch that

"How are you, Benedict?" Julia said

Benedict didn’t answer

"Did you see what happened to le said to stay on the ship, but I thought--" He didn’t finish, just frowned helplessly and shook his head "I wanted to try soht But the ht in ht in the hollow of it"

He pressed his index finger into the soft part below his Adam’s apple, where the arroent in

"It didn’t even hurt that ht they could pull it out I turned around to get back on the boat Then I realized I couldn’t breathe, so I sat down My mouth was full of blood My sword fell in the water Can you believe I orried about that? I was trying to figure out whether we could dive down later and get et it?"

Quentin shook his head

"I guess it doesn’t matter," Benedict said "It was just a practice sword"

"What happened next? You went down the slide?"

Benedict nodded

Quentin was evolving a theory about that The slide was hu That’s what death did, it treated you like a child, like everything you had ever thought and done and cared about was just a child’s game, to be crumpled up and throhen it was over It didn’t ht you were bullshit, and it wanted to et the key?" Benedict said

"I wanted to tell you about that," Quentin said "We did get the key There was a big fight, and we got the key, and it turned out to be really iot killed Just ot stabbed in the side" Notabout under the circumstances "But what I wanted to tell you is that it was i Those keys--we’re going to use them to save Fillory There was a point to it all Without theo away, and the whole world will collapse But we can use the keys to fix it"

Benedict’s expression didn’t change

"But I didn’t do anything," he said "My dying didn’t make a difference I could have just stayed on the boat"

"We do not knoould have happened," Julia said

Benedict ignored her again

"He cannot hearon No one here can see or hear me He does not know I aht next to you"

"No" Benedict frowned the way he used to, like Quentin was e hihost here," she said "A ghost ahost"

What was different about Julia, that the dead couldn’t see her? It was a serious question, but not one they were going to answer right now Instead they watched the crowd so games For all the tiood at it Nobody ever tried for a slam, or a fancy serve, and the rallies only ever went a few shots before the ball hit the net or went bouncing off into the crowd

"This whole place," Benedict said "It’s like soah to think it through You know? I a, and I haven’t even been here that long"

Soods, probably Benedict kicked at his solitaire gaet powers You can’t even fly I’h" He held up his hand, to deain "Because you know, that would have been too cool or whatever"

"What else can you do here? Besides the games and such?"

"Not a lot" Benedict put his hands in his hair and looked up at the ceiling "Talk to the other shades There’s nothing to eat, but you don’t get hungry A few people fight or have sex or whatever You can totally watch them do it even But after a while, I mean, what’s the point? It’s just the new people who do it

"Once they did a huhts But you can’t reach theh I never had sex," he added "In the real world Now I don’t even want to"