The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [138]
The key had lain in its box so long, its three-toothed jaw had worn a shadow of itself into the red velvet. He offered it to her, like a fancy cigar. She picked it up.
“Careful.”
“It’s heavy.” Poppy turned it over in her fingers, weighing it. “Wow. It’s not just the gold, it’s magic. The spellwork on this thing is thick. Dense.”
They looked at it, then at each other.
“I sort of felt around with it in the air,” Quentin said. “You should find an invisible keyhole. It’s hard to explain, it’s more a learn-by-doing thing.”
She nodded. She got it.
“Well.”
“Wait.” He took both of her hands. “I didn’t ask you properly before. Stay here. Please stay. I want you to.”
She shook her head and kissed him softly on the lips. “I can’t. Call me next time you’re in reality.”
He knew she would say that. But it made him feel better, knowing he’d really asked.
Poppy made a few experimental, self-conscious pokes in the air with the key. Quentin wondered idly if the key understood that they were on a moving ship. Suppose it opened a door in the air and then got stuck and they immediately left it behind—the key tugged out of Poppy’s hands, the door lost behind them in midair and midocean. He halfway hoped it would happen.
But no such luck. Old magic usually had any obvious bugs or loopholes like that worked out long ago. Quentin didn’t hear the click, but he saw when her hand met resistance in the air. The key slid in. Keeping one hand on it, she gave him another kiss, this time with some extra sugar in it, then she turned the key. With her other hand she found the doorknob.
A crack opened, and there was a poof of air pressure equalizing. The sun didn’t shine through like it had before. It was dark. It was odd to see an oblong of night standing upright like that, on the deck of a ship in broad daylight. Quentin walked around behind her and tried to peer through it. He felt a cold draft. Winter air. She looked back at him: so far so good?
He wondered what month it was on Earth, or what year even. Maybe the time-streams had gone haywire and she’d be walking into a far-future Earth, an apocalypse Earth, a cold dead world orbiting an extinguished sun. His arms goose-bumped, and a couple of errant snowflakes spun out and melted on the warm wood of the Muntjac’s deck. I had a dream, which was not all a dream. Good old Byron. Something for every occasion.
Poppy let go of the key, ducked her head—the portal was slightly too low for her beanpole frame—and stepped through. He saw her look around and shiver in her summer dress, and he caught a glimpse of what she was looking at. A stone square. The door began to close. The key must have let her out at her last known permanent residence, namely Venice. It made sense. She could crash at Josh’s for a bit. She would know people. She would be safe there.
Or no, she wouldn’t. That wasn’t Venice, and she was all alone. Quentin lunged forward through the closing door after her.
“Poppy!”
She’d stopped just over the threshold, and he barreled into her from behind. She squeaked, and he grabbed her around the shoulders to keep them both from falling over. Then he reached back to keep the door from closing, but it was already gone. The air was freezing. The sky was full of strange stars. It was night, and they were not on Earth. They were in the Neitherlands.
For a second Quentin was almost glad to see them. He hadn’t been to the Neitherlands for two years, not since he and the others had