The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [72]
It was strange to be in a place and not be king of it. He’d gotten out of the habit. It was like Elaine had said: nothing made him special here. Nobody noticed him. He had to admit it was strangely relaxing. It was an hour, and Quentin had cut himself off after his third spritz, before a small, intense young Italian in a pale suit, no tie, came and invited them upstairs. It was the kind of outfit an American couldn’t have gotten away with in a million years.
He showed them into a small all-white salon with three delicate wooden chairs set around a table. There was a plain silver bowl on the table.
No one sat in the third chair. Instead a voice spoke to them out of the air—a man’s voice, but high and whispery, almost androgynous. It was hard to tell where it was coming from.
“Hello, Quentin. Hello, Julia.”
That was creepy. He hadn’t told anybody their names.
“Hi.” He didn’t know where to look. “Thanks for seeing us.”
“You’re welcome,” the voice said. “Why have you come here?”
I guess he doesn’t know everything.
“We’d like to ask for your help with something.”
“What would you like me to help you with?”
Showtime. He wondered if the fixer was even human, or some kind of spirit like Warren, or worse. Julia was doing her thousand-yard stare, a million miles away.
“Well, we’ve just come from another world. From Fillory. Which as it turns out is a real place. You probably knew that.” Ahem. Start again. “We didn’t mean to leave—it was kind of an accident—and we want to go back there.”
“I see.” Pause. “And why would I want to help you with that?”
“Maybe I can help you too. Maybe we can help each other.”
“Oh, I doubt that, Quentin.” The voice dropped an octave. “I doubt that very much.”
“Okay.” Quentin looked behind him. “Right, look, where are you?”
He was starting to feel painfully aware of how vulnerable they were. He didn’t have much of an exit strategy. And the fixer shouldn’t have known their names. Maybe Warren had called ahead. That wasn’t a comforting thought.
“I know who you are, Quentin. There are circles in which you are not a very popular man. Some people think you abandoned this world. Your own world.”
“All right. I wouldn’t say abandoned, but okay.”
“And then Fillory abandoned you. Poor little rich king. It doesn’t seem like anyone wants you, Quentin.”
“You can look at it like that if you want. If we can just get back to Fillory everything will be fine. Or at any rate it’s not your problem, is it?”
“I will be the judge of what is and is not my problem.”
The back of Quentin’s neck prickled. He and the fixer weren’t getting off to a roaring start. He weighed the advantages of laying on some basic defensive magic. Prudent, but it might spook the fixer into trying a preemptive strike. He shot Julia a glance, but she was barely following.
“All right. I’m just here to do business.”
“Look in the bowl.”
Looking in the silver bowl at this juncture seemed like a bad idea. Quentin stood up.
“Listen. If you can’t help us, fine. We’ll go. But if you can help us, give us a price. We’ll pay it.”
“Oh, but I don’t have to give you anything at all. I did not invite you here, and I will decide when you can go. Look in the bowl.”
Now there was steel in that high, whispery voice.
“Look in the bowl.”
This was going south fast. It felt all wrong. He took Julia’s arm and pulled her to her feet.
“We’re leaving,” he said. “Now.”
He backhanded the silver bowl off the table and it clanged against the wall. A slip of paper fluttered out of it. Against his better judgment Quentin glanced at it. There were spells you could set off just by reading them. The paper had the words I.O.U. ONE MAGIC BUTTON written on it in crude magic marker.
The door opened behind them, and Quentin scrambled to get them both behind the table.
“Oh, shit! He looked in the bowl!”
The voice was a lot lower than the one that had been speaking before. It was a voice Quentin knew well. It belonged to Josh.
Quentin hugged him.
“Jesus!” he said into Josh’s broad, comforting shoulder. “What the hell,