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“No,” she breathed “Oh God, no! God no!”

She tried the door again just because it had to open, it had to, she couldn’t be here! And now it did It had mercy on her Effortlessly, no resistance—it even opened out where before it had opened in She half ran, half fell through it and slaain She was in a silent rooe where the League held its s

Oh God Oh, thank God It was over

She was breathing hard, and she sobbed once A dry sob It wasn’t real It wasn’t real None of it Or it was real but it was over She al as she was safe now Maybe she’d fallen asleep here after the ht and it was all a dreaical oing forward either She would stay in this stupid little less room with its crap carpet forever if necessary She loved it It was the most beautiful room she’d ever seen

She had teetered on the edge of the rabbit hole, wind her arms for balance, but in the end she had not fallen She had not She had stayed in the safe sunlit world of grass and sky, and she would never leave it again She had been so wrong ever to think about it It had tried to take her, but she would not be taken

Plus of water She forced herself to think about what it meant So had found out, and they or it was trying to scare her Or s where you auto

But what it felt like was, Fillory itself had reached out and tugged lightly on the invisible thread tied to the fishhook that was lodged firet You belong to me

But she had learned her lesson Or at any rate a lesson: she would never try to enter the wine closet in anything but a straightforward and conventional fashion The couch was so saggy and brokeback that it al She looked at her reflection in the long ht

But she wasn’t in the irl there instead of her Or at least it was shaped like a girl It was blue and naked and its skin gave off a soft unearthly light Even its teeth were blue

It smiled at her Its eyes were the sa htly se: sohtly blurry, other times crisp and clear

Pluot to her feet, but slowly, and after that she didn’twas over with She kneho this was

It was the ghost of Brakebills It had been the ghost all along This wasn’t a friendly ghost It wasn’t athat hated the living Once as a child, after a stor like a lethal snake on a road, arcing over and over again on the wet asphalt, bright as a sun This blue girl was like that The insulation had co the raw naked current

The two girls stared at each other: the one who survived and the one who hadn’t It s a tea party

“No,” Plum said “It’s not me You don’t want me”

But Pluhost did want her It had alanted her She was a Chatwin, and Chatwins lived on borrowed time Plum wondered if it would hurt

Bu had run into it from the other side A shower of plaster fell Alike “oof”

Pluhost in the mirror didn’t

Boo chunks of wood and plaster and stone in all directions, and Pluh it covered hite dust It was Professor Coldwater He shook hih he still looked like he’d been hit with a sack of flour White witchery sprayed out of both his hands like sparklers, so bright they made purple flares in her vision

When he saas in the mirror he froze

“Oh,” he said quietly “Oh my God It’s you”

Plunize this thing? It was almost like he knew it personally, which would be pretty weird even for hiether

“Don’t move till I tell you,” he said

That was meant for Plum She didn’t move, but she didn’t dare to believe that he could actually save her All she’d done was drag him into the catastrophe too

With an ar his face Professor Coldwater reared back one of his long legs and kicked in the lass just starred and sagged, but the third tiot a little stuck when he tried to pull it out It was a ht was, I must tell Chelsea that she won’t have to pay for the mirror

That didn’t dispel the ghost, but it was definitely inconvenienced It was still watching thee of the hole Professor Coldwater turned his back on it—the ghost threw so at them, Plum couldn’t see what, and he deflected it with one hand without looking Then he placed his palether

“Get down,” he said “All the way On the floor”

She got down The air shimmered and rippled, and her hair crackled with so much static electricity it h with light At the botto outward out of its frame

“Now get up and run,” Professor Coldwater said “Run! Go ahead, I’ht behind you”

Plum ran She could have stayed and tried to help, but that would have been co her stupidity withand trusted him: she hurdled the couch like a champion and felt a shockwave as Professor Coldwater detonated some final spell The force of it lifted Pluer, but she found the

Going back was faster than going forward had been She was bounding ahead seven-league-boots-style, which at first she thought was adrenaline till she realized, nope, h the hell-room, another and she was in colonial Brakebills, then she was in Wharton’s roo room crawl space, the library, hard left turn at the creepy-pear-tree-courtyard, the passage The sound of doors sla off

She didn’t stop till she was back in the safety of the Senior Coht behind her, just as he’d said He’d done it, he’d gotten the see to die in that roo, the horror, had broken out of wherever it had been hiding all her life, but he’d shoved it back down For now

Without a word Professor Coldwater set about resealing the passageway behind the back to normal, dazed but not so dazed that she wasn’t interested in the technical aspects:crazily like a time-lapse movie, he assembled an entire intricately patterned brick wall in about five seconds

She wondered where he’d learned how to do that Not here This tiles Say that for him: he learned from his mistakes

Then he climbed out and closed the door They were alone It could all have been a dream except for the plaster dust on the shoulders of Professor Coldwater’s blazer

“How did you know?” she said “How did you knohere I was? Where the ghost was?”

“Not a ghost A niffin Very bad news”

“What did it want?”

“She She used to be hu to you?”

“No Can they talk?”

“I don’t know” One of his fingers was still crackling with a bit of white fire; he shook it and it went out “Nobody knowsto her I just distracted her and got out of there”

“But you looked surprised when you saw it You looked like you recognized it I mean her”

“I know” Professor Coldwater looked sadder and less triuht “I know I did I wish she’d said so”

“I don’t care if it recited the godda James Bible”