Lev Grossman - The Magicians

And just like that it was over. They were out of opponents. The elves and the bees were down. The room was full of acid smoke from the burned satyr. Fen owned most of the body count; she was already running through a post-combat warm-down ritual, stepping backward through the forms she’d executed in the brief battle and whispering their names to herself. Penny was carefully casting a sleep spell on the satyr that Eliot had stuck to the ceiling, while Anaïs watched, impatient to administer the coup de grace. Quentin noted, with the pettiest possible annoyance, that they had the satyr without the buckler, which meant that Dint had burned the satyr with the buckler, which meant that he couldn’t loot the buckler for himself. He had a crusty dried mustache from his bloody nose.

That wasn’t so bad, he told himself. This wasn’t such a nightmare. He risked a shuddering sigh of relief. Was that really it? Had they gotten everything?

Janet had finally thawed from her frozen state and was busy with something. Unlike everything else they’d seen, the fleshy, headless four-legged creature was neither humanoid nor obviously related to any terrestrial fauna. It was radially symmetrical, like a starfish, with no obvious front or back or face. It stood unreadable in a dark corner, taking sudden scary little hops in unexpected directions. It had a large faceted gem embedded in its back. Decoration? Or was that its eye? Its brain?

“Hey.” Fen snapped her fingers in Janet’s direction. “Hey!” Evidently she’d forgotten Janet’s name. “Leave that. Leave the grimling to us.”

Janet ignored her. She continued to take wary steps toward it. Quentin wished she wouldn’t. She was in no kind of emotional state to be working magic.

“Janet!” he shouted.

“Shit,” Dint said distinctly.

It was a businesslike “shit”—another damn mess for him to clean up. He brought his wand back out from wherever he’d stashed it.

But before he could act Janet reached carefully behind her back and brought out something small but heavy. Gripping it with both hands, she made a small adjustment and then fired five shots into the creature at close range. The pistol bounced upward with each shot, and each time she carefully re-aimed it. The sound was shattering in the low-ceilinged chamber. One shot struck sparks off the jewel in the grimling’s back. It sank to the floor, shivering and deflating like a parade balloon, still expressionless. It made a high urgent whistling sound. By the fifth shot it was visibly dead.

Nothing and nobody in the room moved. Janet turned around. The tears she had shed earlier were already dry.

She glared at them.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” she said.

It got colder the deeper they went. At six stories underground Quentin was shivering in his heavy sweater and thinking nostalgically about the warm puffy parkas they’d abandoned way back by the sunny little stream. They broke for a rest in a circular room with a beautiful lapis lazuli spiral inlaid in the floor. Dark green ambient light emanated from somewhere, like the light in an aquarium. Dint sat in the lotus position, wrapped his cape around him, and meditated. A gap of about six inches separated him from the floor. Fen did calisthenics. The break was clearly not for their benefit; they were like professional mountaineers impatiently shepherding a herd of rich fat cats up the slopes of Mount Everest. The Brakebills party was a package they were contractually obligated to deliver.

Alice sat by herself on a stone bench, her back against a pillar, looking blankly at a mosaic on the wall depicting a sea monster, a creature like an octopus but much larger and with many more than eight legs. Quentin straddled the bench at the other end, facing her. Her eyes flicked over to his for a long moment. There was not a hint of either contrition or forgiveness in them. He made sure his eyes looked the same.

They watched the mosaic. The little squares that made up the sea creature were moving very slowly, rearranging themselves on the wall. The crude blue waves rolled along very gradually. It was easy decorative magic. There was a bathroom floor at Brakebills that had much the same effect. Alice felt like a black hole that was trying to pull him in, rip the flesh clean off him with its sheer toxic gravity.

Finally she took out her canteen and used it to wet a spare white sock.

“Let’s do something about your nose,” she said.

She reached out to dab at his face, but at the last minute he realized he didn’t want her to touch him. He took the sock himself, carefully. It turned pink as he wiped at his upper lip.

“So what was it like,” Quentin said. “When you let the demon out.”

Now that the high of combat was gone, and she was no longer in danger, his anger came creeping back. The anesthetic was wearing off. It was an effort not to say anything vicious. She hiked her foot up onto the bench and started undoing the laces on her sneakers.

“It felt good,” she said carefully. “I thought it would hurt, but it was kind of a relief. Like sneezing. I never felt like I could really breathe with that thing inside me.”

“Interesting. Did it feel as good as fucking Penny?”

He’d actually thought he was going to be civil, but it was too hard. The words came out of his mouth of their own malevolent volition. He wondered what else he would say. I’ve got all kinds of demons inside of me, he thought. Not just the one.

If he’d managed to hurt Alice, she didn’t let it show. She carefully peeled off a sock. A nasty white blister covered the entire ball of her foot. They watched the mosaic some more. A little boat had floated into the scene, a lifeboat maybe, or a launch from a whaler. It was crowded with tiny people. It looked pretty much like a done deal that the sea creature was going to crush the little boat in its many long green arms.

“That was—” She stopped and started over. “That wasn’t good.”

“So why did you do it.”

Alice tilted her head, thoughtfully, but her face was white.

“To get back at you. Because I was feeling like shit about myself. Because I didn’t think you would care. Because I was drunk, and he came on pretty strong—”

“So he raped you.”

“No, Quentin, he did not—”

“Never mind. Stop talking.”

“I don’t think I understood how much it would hurt you—”

“Just stop talking, I can’t talk to you anymore, I can’t hear anything you’re saying!”

He’d started that little speech speaking normally and he ended it shouting. In a way fighting like this was just like using magic. You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse. Quentin leaned forward, all the way forward, until he had placed his forehead on the cool marble of the bench in front of him. His eyes were closed. He wondered what time it was. His head felt a little spinny. He could fall asleep right there, he thought. Just like this. He wanted to tell Alice he didn’t love her, but he couldn’t, because it wasn’t true. It was the one lie he couldn’t quite tell.

“I wish this were over,” Alice quietly.

“What.”

“This mission, this adventure, whatever you want to call it. I want to go home.”

“I don’t.”

“This is bad, Quentin. Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

“Good, I hope they do. If I die doing this, at least I’ll have done something. Maybe you’ll do something one of these days instead of being such a pathetic little mouse all the time.”

She said something he didn’t catch.

“What?”

“I said, don’t talk to me about death. You don’t know anything about it.”