The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [168]
Then Benedict was crying. He was sobbing so hard he wasn’t making any noise. He caught his breath and started sobbing more.
Quentin put a hand on his back. Say something. Anything.
“I’m so sorry, Benedict. You died too soon. You didn’t have your chance.”
Benedict shook his head.
“It’s good I died.” He took a shuddering breath. “I was useless. It’s good it was me and not anybody else.” His voice went away to a squeak at the end.
“No,” Quentin said firmly. “That’s bullshit. You were a great mapmaker, and you were going to be a great swordsman, and it’s a fucking tragedy that you died.”
Benedict nodded at this too.
“Will you—will you say hi to her for me? Tell her I liked her.”
“Who do you mean?”
Even though his face was red from crying, and dripping with tears, Benedict’s face had all its old adolescent contempt.
“Poppy. She was nice to me. Do you think she could come visit? Down here I mean?”
“I don’t think she has a passport. I’m sorry, Benedict.”
Benedict nodded. There were more shades around the two of them now. A group was definitely gathering, and it wasn’t at all clear that their intentions were friendly.
“I’ll come back,” Quentin said.
“You can’t. That’s the rule. You can only come one time. Didn’t they take your passport? They didn’t give it back, did they?”
“No. I guess they didn’t.”
Benedict took a shaky breath and wiped his eyes on his white sleeve.
“I wish I could have stayed. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s so stupid! If I’d just waited on the boat I’d still be up there. I looked at that arrow and thought, this little stick, this little piece of wood, is taking my whole life away. That’s all my life is worth. One little stick can erase it all. That’s the last thing I thought.” He looked directly at Quentin. It was the one moment when he didn’t seem angry or ashamed. “I miss it so much. You don’t understand how much I miss it.”
“I’m so sorry, Benedict. We miss you too.”
“Listen, you better go. I don’t think they want you here.”
A whole crowd was standing around them now, silently, in a rough semicircle. Maybe it was Quentin’s nonstandard pajamas. Maybe they could just see that he was alive somehow. That kid was one of them, who’d been staring at him before. Quentin wished the shades weren’t so solid-looking.
Quentin and Benedict both stood up, with their backs to the pillar. So did Julia.
“I have something,” Benedict said, suddenly shy again. “I was going to give it back.”
He dug something out of his pocket and pressed it into Quentin’s hand. His fingers were cold, and the thing was hard and cold too. It was the golden key.
“Oh. My God.” It was the last one. Quentin held it up in both hands. “Benedict, how did you get this?”
“Quentin,” Julia said. “Is that it?”
“I had it all along,” Benedict said. “After you and Queen Julia went through the door I picked it up when no one was looking. I don’t know why. I didn’t know how to give it back. I thought maybe I’d pretend to find it. I’m sorry. I wanted to be a hero.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Quentin’s heart was hammering in his chest. This was it. They were going to win after all. “Don’t be sorry at all. It doesn’t matter.”
“Then it came down here with me when I died. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You did the right thing, Benedict.” He’d been so wrong about everything. After all that, he hadn’t had to kill a monster or solve a riddle. He just had to come down here, to see how Benedict was doing. “Thank you. You are a hero. You really are. You always will be.”
Quentin laughed out loud and clapped poor Benedict on the shoulder. Benedict laughed too, reluctantly, and then not so reluctantly. Quentin wondered when the last time was that anybody laughed down here.
“It is time,” Julia said. “I am ready.”
It was. It was time to go, if that’s what she meant. But the shades didn’t seem to want them to leave. They stood around them in a semicircle, maybe a hundred of them, blocking