“I keep trying to figure it out,” Josh said. “It was like somebody’d attacked the Neitherlands, or cursed it, except who could do that? I didn’t see anybody there. It was just as empty as it always was. I thought maybe—I know it’s silly—I thought maybe I’d see Penny.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, not that I wanted to. I couldn’t stand that guy. But it’d be nice to know he’s not dead.”
“Yeah. It would.”
Quentin was already trying to calculate whether this meant he and Julia couldn’t get back to Fillory through the Neitherlands. It was still possible, in theory. They’d just suit up for cold weather. Bring an ice ax.
“I always thought the Neitherlands were invulnerable,” Quentin said. “They felt like they were outside time, I didn’t think they ever changed. But it sounds like an earthquake hit them, an earthquake and a blizzard at the same time.”
“I know, right? What are the odds?”
“I don’t suppose you noticed whether the Fillory fountain was still there?” Quentin said. “I thought maybe we’d go back that way. Back to Fillory.”
“No. So you are going back? I didn’t exactly pop in while I was passing through. But listen, I don’t know if you can go back that way anyway.”
“Why not? I realize the Neitherlands is a disaster area, but it’s worth a try. You got back to Earth. You seem pretty settled here. We’ll just borrow the button and be on our way.”
“Yeah, see, that’s the thing.”
Josh didn’t meet Quentin’s eyes. He studied a painting hanging on the flaking wall behind Quentin as if he’d never seen it before.
“What?”
“I don’t have the button anymore.”
“You don’t—?”
“Yeah. I sold it. I didn’t realize you still wanted it.”
Quentin could not be hearing this.
“You didn’t. Tell me you did not do that.”
“I totally did!” Josh said, indignant. “How the hell do you think I could afford a fucking Venetian palazzo?”
CHAPTER 14
The old wood of Josh’s dining room table felt cool against Quentin’s forehead. In a few more seconds he’d sit up again. That’s how long it would take to roll his brain back to the state it was in before it thought that their troubles were over. Until that happened Quentin would just enjoy the cool solidity of the table for a second more. He let the despair wash over him. The button was gone. He thought about banging his head a few times, just lightly, but that would have been overdoing it.
He was aware for the first time of how quiet the city had gotten. After dark the streets and canals seemed to empty out. As if Venice felt less of an obligation to pretend to be part of this millennium at night, and had reverted to its medieval self again.
All right. He sat up. The blood drained back out of his face. Back to work.
“Okay. You sold the button.”
“Look, you must have had some other plan,” Josh said. “I mean, don’t tell me you were actually planning on randomly running into me in Venice and bumming the button off me. That’s not a plan.”
“Well, no,” Quentin said, “it’s not a plan. The plan was not to get booted out of Fillory, but that ship has sailed, so I’m working on a new plan. Who the hell did you sell the button to?”
“Well, that’s a story too!” Josh launched straight into the tale, untroubled by any further self-reproach. If Quentin had moved on then so could he, and this was obviously a much happier story than the one about his sojourn in the Neitherlands. “See, I realized I was through with that button. I was done with the Neitherlands and Fillory and all that stuff. If I was going to get laid—and I was—I was going to get laid right here in the real world. So I looked around for something to do on Earth, and I started picking up on this underground scene. The safe houses, all that stuff. Have you heard about that?”
“Julia’s been catching me up.”
“I mean, I always knew there were hedge witches out there, a few of them, but this thing goes deep, man
“You gotta watch yourself around the desperate ones. They don’t know enough to be dangerous, most of them, but they attract scavengers. Fairies and demons and whatever. Fucking jackals. That’s where you get problems. The predators don’t mess around with us because we’re too much trouble, but those poor bastards, the hedge magicians, they want power and they’ll do anything to get it. I’ve heard of them striking some pretty bad bargains.
“But you know what? I like them. You know I never fit in that well at Brakebills. That whole fake Oxford thing, with the wine tasting and the fancy dress and all that—that was always more your scene, you and Eliot. And, and Janet.” He almost mentioned Alice but swerved away at the last second. “And it was great, don’t get me wrong. But it’s just not my style.
“I get along better with the underground people. People thought I was a joke at Brakebills, but here I’m a big wheel. I guess I just got tired of being the bottom of the food chain. Nobody really appreciated me there—no, not even you, Quentin. Not really. But here I’m like the king.”
Quentin could have denied it—but no, he couldn’t really. It was true. Everybody loved Josh, but nobody took him seriously. He’d allowed himself to think that it was because Josh didn’t want to be taken seriously, but that wasn’t true at all, of Josh or probably of anybody. Everybody wanted to be the hero of their own story. Nobody wanted to be comic relief. Josh had probably been carrying that around as long as Quentin had known him. No wonder he gave them a hard time in that room with the bowl.
“So is that why you sold the button? Because you felt like we didn’t take you seriously?”
Josh looked wounded. “I sold the button because I got offered a fuckload of money for it. But would that have been a bad reason? Look, I had a little anger to deal with. They treat me with respect here. I never knew what that was like before. I’m the bridge between the two worlds. There’s things you can’t get in the underground that I know how to find and vice versa. So people come to me with problems from both sides.
“It’s actually pretty wild. The underground scene has shit we never could have gotten our hands on, and they don’t even know it. They have these sad little swap meets, and then something really legendary turns up, totally at random, and they don’t even recognize it. One time I found a Cherenkov sphere. Nobody knew what it was, I had to show them how to hold it.”
“So what about the button? Did you sell that at a swap meet?”
“Aha, yeah, you might well ask that,” Josh said, unfazed. “That was more of a special transaction. A one-off. High-status client.”
“Yeah, I bet. Maybe you could put me in touch with your high-status client. Maybe he’ll want to have a special transaction with me too.”
“No harm in trying, but I can’t say I love your chances.” Josh was grinning like a lunatic. There was obviously a secret there that he was dying to blow.
“Tell me.”
“Okay!” Josh held up his hands, setting the scene. “So. After I get back from the Neitherlands I’m knocking around New York, just enjoying that I still have all my extremities, when I get a call on my cell from this guy, he says meet me tomorrow in Venice. Business to discuss, confidential matter, whatever. I’m like fine, I guess, but I’m kinda short on cash, so how’s that going to work. I’m just walking along the sidewalk having this conversation. And
