Quentin shifted, trying to get comfortable.

"Don't move!" Eliot scolded. His voice rang double, far away and unbearably close at the same time.

Quentin winced. "I'm not."

"I can see you fidgeting from here, Q. Julia, do keep him still."

Julia didn't say anything. She hadn't spoken a single word since sitting down next to him. Quentin chanced a look at her from the corner of his eye. She was looking straight ahead, possibly watching Alice and Penny do a last sweep of the wards. Except her eyes didn't look quite focused. Not on the world around her, at least.

Quentin contained a sigh and turned his attention back to Eliot. The man was kneeling some distance away, head bent. His hands glowed as they moved. The symbols his fingers shaped weren't ones Quentin recognized. The words that went along with them were downright foreign.

The chanting cut off. Eliot rose to his feet with a flourish. "And we are done! To your positions, ladies and gents!"

Rustling and not a little grumbling followed as everyone settled in their assigned spots. Quentin swallowed. The forest was quiet around them, the silence broken only by the magicians' own breaths. It was as if the world had turned hollow. Like something had stopped - a heart, or perhaps a -

"I'm sorry."

Quentin flinched. He couldn't make himself meet Julia's eyes. "That's alright."

Julia's voice came again, hushed and hesitant. "He was - he was in the mirror, wasn't he? That's why you broke it."

Quentin nodded.

"What was he like? The Beast?"

"It - he -" Quentin tried to grasp an appropriate adjective. The words slipped through his mind like grains of sand in an hour glass. In the end, he simply shook his head.

It was getting darker. Quentin shifted again, stilled, tried to keep his breathing even. "Do you think Margo's alright?" he asked.

"I think so. God, I hope so. She's strong, but those - those things that bastard let loose on the school..." Julia shuddered.

Quentin clenched his eyes shut. "If I hadn't broken the mirror-"

"If you hadn't broken it, he would've come through. Who knows what would've happened then."

"Yeah." Quentin toed at the dirt. "Julia. Are you happy?"

"What?"

"At Brakebills. Or - or in general, I suppose."

"What kind of question is that?" Julia snapped.

"It's just - you don't look happy. You haven't for a while."

"You are telling me off for looking depressed? Seriously?"

"I'm not telling you off! I just don't get it. You got everything you wanted. You made it into Brakebills-"

Julia snorted. "Only because you kicked up a fuss. You think I didn't hear about it?"

"So what?"

"So what? They all look at me like I don't belong, Quentin! Do you know what that's like?"

"Yeah, actually." The words came out sharper than Quentin had meant them to.

Julia stiffened. "Well, I'm not you," she spat out.

Quentin kept himself still with some effort. He wanted to get up. He wanted to get away - from the dead forest, from Julia, from the Beast and everything crazy and fucked up in his life. Only he'd have to leave his brain behind, too, because that wasn't winning any medals for sanity either.

"Do I have the world's worst timing, or does the drama truly never end with you two?"

Quentin sat up. His eyes were wide, his body tense enough to hurt. At his side, Julia barely breathed.

The Beast stood before them.

They hadn't heard him. They hadn't felt him, or seen him appear. The clearing had been empty a heartbeat ago yet here the man was, tailored suit and a cloud-full of moths at his shoulders, all within arms' reach. The forest thrummed, alive once again.

"I suppose you are acting the part of bait. An idea of some merit." The moths shifted. It looked like the man was cocking his head. "Rather poor realization, I am afraid."

"How's that?" Quentin croaked.

The moths fluttered. Their wings pulled together, shivered once, and smoothed. The face they formed bore a disappointed smile.

"Whoever sacrifices the queen for the pawns?"

A flash of magic lit up the clearing. Quentin shut his eyes tight, bracing for pain. He remembered himself a second later. The double-vision was gone when he opened his eyes. He and Julia were safe behind the tree line. Some feet away, the Beast regarded the spelled cards that had born their likeliness with growing amusement. He bent and picked one of them up. It was torn in two, but the Queen of Spades was still recognizable.

"Appropriate," the Beast hummed.

"Isn't it just?"

Light burst from the earth at the sound of Eliot's voice. Lines made of gold energy speared out, connecting where each of them stood: Eliot, Alice, Penny, Quentin, Julia. Five points of a star. The Beast stood at the pentagram's center, trapped. Smiling.

"Very good. Points for thinking beyond the box your instructors stuffed you in."

Quentin shifted in place, suddenly restless. "Don't move, or the wards will fail!" Julia hissed. Quentin nodded mindlessly.

"Well, you have caught me." The Beast spread his hands. His smile stretched. "What now?"

"Call your pets off the school," Eliot demanded.

"Or?"

"Or you're done. Finito. You hear me?"

Penny looked about ready to charge into the clearing. Eliot's face shone white, the fury in his eyes cold and terrible. Alice had her hands cupped together in front of her chest, fingers intertwined. They looked ready to fight, ready to kill. Quentin grit his teeth. The Beast had stolen the joy of magic from them. Another of the creature's many sins.

The Beast sighed. "If only it were so. Alas, our dance seems fated to carry on for eternity."

The Beast waved his hand. The earth shook. Magic rumbled under Quentin's feet. The barrier shone bright in the gloom, seemingly undisturbed. The magicians looked at each other, then at the Beast.

"What the hell-"

The soil under the Beast's feet shifted. A pale hand pushed through the dirt.

Penny's voice cut off with a loud inhale.

"It's one of them," Julia hissed. "The things at the school!"

Quentin shook his head. "Those were spirits. They didn't have bodies." The creature clawing its way out from the forest floor had arms, and legs, and a face-

"Charlie!"

Quentin's head snapped up.

"Alice, no!"

Alice took a step forward and reached for her -

("Dead, Alice! He's fucking dead!" Penny screamed.)

- brother.

The barrier pulsed once, then dimmed. The Beast smiled.

A moment later, the world exploded in green-edged light.

Quentin's ears rang. He couldn't see, and then he could and didn't want to - not Alice, crumpled in the arms of a monster with blood-stained teeth.

"One," the Beast said.

Not Penny and Eliot, tongues stilling (no, falling out, fuck fuck fuck) and bodies jerking, eyes rolling back into their heads.

"Two. Three."

Not the Beast, turning disappointed black eyes on him.

"Four, I am afraid."

The flare of magic came quick, like a thrown blade. There was no time for spells and none at all for running. 

"Julia," Quentin gasped. If she could make it, if she could at least get away-

Julia was there. Quentin blinked. His friend's face was close. Her mouth was opened in a gasp. Her eyes, wide and wet, stared at Quentin with fevered focus.

"No," Quentin whispered.

Julia fell forward. Quentin caught her, arms numb. "No," he repeated, "no," and shook her, shook her.

The body in his arms was still. Quentin slid to his knees.

Footsteps. One, two, three-four. A shadow fell over Quentin. Quentin didn't look up. His hands were clenched around fistfuls of Julia's sweater. His breaths came hard and fast.

"They all want something," the Beast mused. "They want to help you, yes, and stop me, perhaps. But there is always something they want more. I need only promise a glimpse of it, and they lose sight of all else."

The shadow shifted. The Beast put his hand under Quentin's jaw and carefully urged Quentin's head up.

"What is it that you want, Quentin Coldwater?"

Quentin swallowed. He met the Beast's gaze. Something buzzed inside his head - no, creaked, rattled. Ground to a start.

"I want..."

-tak

"I want -"

Tik.

"-this to stop."

The Beast disappeared in a flash of light. The forest shimmered. Hollow ticking throbbed under Quentin's feet. A clock had started up again, counting backwards.

Quentin closed his eyes.

---

Word count: 1422