The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [97]
Quentin stood there, on the outside looking in, as a little convocation of evening gnats began to gather over his head. It seemed sacrilegious—he wanted to barge in and order everybody out, like Jesus ridding the temple of moneylenders. This was ground zero for the primal fantasy of the twentieth century, the place where Earth and Fillory had first kissed like two cosmic billiard balls. Over the chatter a roar went up, and a woman shrieked and then laughed uncontrollably.
But looking on the bright side, it was a tactical windfall. It was a big enough party that they could mingle in, the girls especially. They wouldn’t sneak in at all, they would walk in the front door. Brazen it out. Then when any suspicions had been allayed they would slip upstairs and see what they could see. He walked back to the car to get the others.
They found a spot for the car on the lawn. They weren’t the least plausible bunch of partygoers imaginable. Quentin had invested in some nice clothes in Venice, charged to Josh’s bottomless credit card.
“If anybody asks just say John brought you.”
“Good one. Dude, are you gonna . . . ?” Josh gestured at Quentin’s appearance.
Oh, right. Probably better not to show up looking like a pile of mulch. He killed the camouflage spell. Crossing the threshold, Quentin closed his eyes for just a moment. He thought of little Jane Chatwin, still alive and at large somewhere. Maybe she would be at the party too.
Josh made straight for the bar.
“Dude!” Quentin hissed. “Stay on mission!”
“We’re in deep cover. I’m getting into character.”
For all that it was a party at Maude Chatwin’s house, it was also just a party like any other party. There were pretty people and unpretty people, drunk people and undrunk people, people who didn’t care what anybody thought about them and people standing in corners afraid to open their mouths lest somebody look directly at them.
Deep cover notwithstanding, Josh revealed himself to be conspicuously American by asking the bartender for beer. He wound up settling for a Pimm’s Cup, which he consumed with an air of disappointed bafflement. But he and Poppy made themselves agreeable to the other guests with an ease and skill that Quentin found awe-inspiring. Genuinely social people never ceased to amaze him. Their brains seemed to generate an inexhaustible fund of things to say, naturally, with no effort, out of nothing at all. It was a trick Quentin had never figured out.As an unattached American male among English strangers, he felt inherently suspicious. He did his best to affiliate himself with small groups and nod along politely in response to people who weren’t especially talking to him.
Julia found a wall to put her slender back against and looked decorously mysterious. Only one man dared to approach her, a tall Cantabridgian type with a half-grown beard, and she sent him packing in terms so uncertain he had to salve his wounds with cucumber sandwich. After a half hour of this Quentin felt he could begin a slow drift toward the stairs—not the grand Tara-style ones in front but a more unassuming, utilitarian staircase toward the back of the house. One by one he caught the others’ eyes in turn and inclined his head. We were just looking for a bathroom? All four of us? Too bad they didn’t have drugs; that would have made a better cover story.
The staircase performed a tight switchback up to the second floor, a hushed and darkened maze of white walls and parquet. The rumble and tinkle of the party was still clearly audible, but hushed now, like distant surf. There were a few kids up here, helling along the hallways and racketing in and out of rooms, laughing a little too hysterically, playing some game nobody knew the rules of, flopping down on the coats when they got tired, the kind of forced pack of one-shot friends that exists on the margins of all grown-up parties.
The World in the Walls wasn’t a how-to manual, and it was irritatingly vague as to