The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [68]
It was in a cemetery behind a church, whither Quentin had retired for more sulking, that she sprang the trap. Looking back on it she was proud of herself. She could have lost it but she didn’t. She got it out. She said her piece, and hung on to her pride, and showed him that she was every bit as good as he was. She made the case. She even showed him the spell, the one with the rainbow trails, which she’d gotten down pat over the previous six months. Even those murderous hand positions, even the one with the thumbs, she had hit with icy precision. She’d never shown it to anybody before, and it felt great to finally unveil it for an audience. She took that beach like a goddamned Marine.
And when it came down to the nuclear option, when the red phone rang in the war room, Julia hadn’t flinched. Oh, no. She took that call. If that’s what it took, she would go there, sister.
But here was the thing: he wouldn’t. She hadn’t counted on that. She’d offered, as plainly as she knew how. She’d run herself through with the hook and dangled herself before him, pink and wriggling, but he hadn’t taken the bait. Julia knew she’d let herself go a bit lookswise, but still. Come on. It didn’t add up.
The problem wasn’t her, it was him. Something or someone had gotten to him. He wasn’t the Quentin she remembered. Funny: she’d almost forgotten people could change. Time had stopped for her the day she’d gotten her social studies paper back from Mr. Karras, but outside the dark, musty interior of her room, time had gone on hurtling forward. And in that time Quentin Makepeace Coldwater had managed to get a boner for somebody else besides Julia.
Well, good for him.
When he left she lay down on the cold, soft, wet grass of the graveyard. It rained on her and she let it. It wasn’t that she was wrong. She’d been right. He’d confirmed everything that she’d ever suspected, about Brakebills and magic and everything else. It was all real, and it was extraordinary. It was everything she wanted it to be. Her theoretical work had been admirably rigorous, and she had been rewarded with full experimental validation.
It was just that there was nothing he could do for her. It was all real—it wasn’t a dream or a psychotic hallucination—but they weren’t going to let her have it. There was a place out there that was so perfect and magical that it had made even Quentin happy. There wasn’t just magic there, there was love too. Quentin was in love. But Julia wasn’t. She was out in the cold. Hogwarts was fully subscribed, and her eligibility had lapsed. Hagrid’s motorcycle would never rumble outside her front door. No creamy-enveloped letters would ever come flooding down her chimney.
She lay there thinking, on the rich, wet graveyard grass, before the tomb of some random parishioner—Beloved Son, Husband, Father—and what she thought was this: she’d been right about almost everything. She’d gotten nearly full marks. A minus again. Blew only one question.
Here’s the one thing I got wrong, she thought. I thought that they could never wear me down.
CHAPTER 13
Shoplifting a city map from a tourist trap wasn’t a particularly spiritually enlarging activity—where was Benedict when you needed him?—and the magic involved was trivial. But it gave Quentin enough time to pull himself together. He wished he hadn’t said that about Warren. He wished he weren’t so tired. And so stupid. He wished he could either fall back in love with Julia or get over her all the way. Maybe he was stuck in between forever, like the space between the portals. Food for the trolls.
Quentin took