The Magicians - Lev Grossman [130]
They were in the center of a still, hushed, empty city square, treading water in the round pool of a fountain. It was absolutely silent: no wind, no birds, no insects. Broad paving stones stretched away in all directions, clean and bare as if they’d just been swept. On all four sides of the square stood a row of stone buildings. They gave off an impression of indescribable age—they weren’t decrepit, but they’d been lived in. They looked vaguely Italianate; they could have been in Rome, or Venice. But they weren’t.
The sky was low and overcast, and a light rain was falling, almost mist. The droplets dimpled the still surface of the water, which made its way into the pool from the overflowing bowl of a giant bronze lotus flower. The square had the air of a place that had been hastily abandoned, five minutes ago or five centuries, it was impossible to tell.
Quentin treaded water for a minute, then took one long breaststroke over to the stone lip. The pool was only about fifteen feet across, and the rim was scarred and pocked: old limestone. Bracing himself with both hands, he heaved himself up and and flopped out of the water onto dry land.
“Jesus,” he whispered, panting. “Fucking Penny. It is real.”
It wasn’t just because he hated Penny. He really hadn’t thought it was true. But now here they were in the City. This was it, the actual Neitherlands, or something that looked uncannily like them. It was unbelievable. The most naïve, most blissfully happy-sappy dream of his childhood was true. God, he’d been so wrong about everything.
He took a deep breath, then another. It was like white light flooding through him. He didn’t know he could be this happy. Everything that was weighing him down—Janet, Alice, Penny, everything—was suddenly insubstantial by comparison. If the City was real, then Fillory could be real, too. Last night had been a disaster, an apocalypse, but this was so much more important. It was almost funny now. There was so much joy ahead of them.
He turned to Alice. “This is exactly—”
Her fist caught him smack in his left eye. She hit like a girl, without any weight behind it, but he hadn’t seen it coming to roll with it. The left half of the world flashed white.
He bent over, half blind, the heel of his hand over his eye. She kicked him in the shins, one and then the other, with dismaying accuracy.
“Asshole! You asshole!”
Alice’s face was pale. Her teeth were chattering.
“You bastard. You fucking coward.”
“Alice,” he managed. “Alice, I’m sorry. But listen . . . look—” He tried to point at the world around them while also verifying that his cornea was still intact.
“Don’t you fucking speak to me!” She slapped wildly at his head and shoulders with both hands so that he ducked and put up his arms. “Don’t you even dare talk to me, you whore! You fucking whore!”
He staggered a few steps away across the stone, trying to escape, his sopping wet clothes flapping, but she followed him like a swarm of bees. Their voices sounded small and empty in the echoless square.
“Alice! Alice!” His orbital ridge was a ring of fire. “Forget about all that for a second! Just for a second!” She’d still been holding the button in her fist when she clocked him. It must be a lot heavier than it looked. “You don’t understand. It was just . . . everything—” There was a right way to say this. “I got confused. Life just seemed so empty—I mean out there—it’s like what you said, we have to live while we can. Or that’s what I thought. But it got out of control. It just got out of control.” Why was he talking in clichés? Get to the point. He definitely had one. “We were all just so drunk—”
“Really. Too drunk to fuck?” She had him there. “I could kill you. Do you understand that?” Her face was terrible. There were two white-hot points on her flushed cheeks. “I could burn you to nothing right where you stand. I’m stronger than you. Nothing you could do would stop me.”
“Listen, Alice.” He had to stop her from