On nearly every timeline so far, it ended like this, with a game of Welters.

Dean Fogg took off his glasses. Despite his missing eyes, he could still see the board thanks to the Beast's spell. He also saw the Beast himself standing on the opposite side, his face hidden by the mysterious floating leaf.

"Win, and you live," the Beast offered.

"No. I want Brakebills University and its students to survive."

"Sure," the Beast replied. "Whatever. Would you like to go first?"

"Yes."

After playing the Beast more than ten times, Fogg knew some of the squares to avoid.

The Dean rolled the dodecahedral die. He reached out with his magic to find what was hidden in the tile on which it landed. The square connected to a room in Brakebills--in the accounting office, of all places. A dusty ledger materialized on the Welters board.

"Open it," said the Beast.

Obligingly, Fogg cast the spell summoning the ledger to his hand. As soon as it left the Welters board, however, it faded from his sight. "I can't read it."

"Turn the pages."

Fogg sighed and did as the Beast commanded. After turning a few handfuls of pages, he found one that he could see. On it were several massive donations from Christopher Plover to Brakebills.

Fogg's hands trembled. Since repairing his fingers, keeping them steady had sometimes been an issue. This morning in the garden his magical gestures had been perfectly steady as he practiced summoning moths and directing them to devour useless vegetation. Why did they fail him now?

"My turn." The Beast summoned the die and rolled it.

Fogg swallowed bile as the dodecahedral die landed on a yellow square. He'd seen what would happen next in many other timelines. Julia appeared, bound and gagged, kneeling. The Beast made a slicing motion, and she fell lifeless to the floor.

Breath hissed from Dean Fogg. Which square held Quentin? Quentin's vortex spell, the one he'd used when playing Welters earlier this year, was the only chance to end this. The difficulty, apart from finding Quentin, would be distracting the Beast long enough for Quentin to complete the casting.

Fogg rolled, and the die fell on a red square, one he'd never rolled in any other timeline. He reached out with his magic and summoned what was at the tile. A short cabinet appeared, one he'd seen in Plover's home. A chill went through him.

"Do you remember that?" the Beast asked.

Fogg did. With an effort, he got his breathing under control. "No. I've seen lots of cabinets like that one."

"Open it," the Beast said.

Fogg trembled. How could the Beast know about the cabinet? Why would he care?

"I--I can't. Since the operation to restore my hands, the spell of lock-picking has been too subtle for me."

The Beast snorted, summoned the die, and rolled.

Penny appeared in a violet square. His emaciated body lay like a tangle of rags amidst leaves, dust, and dirt.

"Oops," the Beast said. "I must have forgotten to feed him, much as you've forgotten the cabinet."

A light danced above Penny.

"Bonus turn!" The Beast rolled again, and the dodecahedron landed on an orange square. Upon the Beast's casting, a device like a large magnifying glass materialized: The Glass of Filory.

The Dean's stomach turned. He tried never to think about the day he'd found and used that rare, precious magical item. To this day he tried to tell himself that what he'd seen couldn't be what it looked like.

"Do you remember when you found this?"

"Have I seen it before?" the Dean scratched his head.

"You saw what Plover did," the Beast roared, "so I took your eyes! You did nothing, so I took your hands!"

Fogg shook. He wanted to deny it, to look away, but he had no eyes to close. The Glass of Filory floated toward him. Through it, he saw the contents of the small cabinet, the same collection of pictures he'd seen long ago. Though strategic parts of the images had since been burned away, he recognized Martin Chatwin's unclothed juvenile body. Fogg shuddered. Liquid beaded in his eyeless sockets. Could he cry?

"What's the matter?" the Beast asked in a saccharine voice.

"I--I'm sorry. Plover was a friend, and I didn't want to believe that--" Fogg heaved, but kept himself from vomiting.

"I told myself he was only taking pictures," Fogg said.

"My turn," the Beast said.

The die landed on a green square. On it, a picture of the bloody corpse of Alice materialized. Fogg had seen her shortly after she was murdered, but this image was somehow more vivid than the real thing.

"Just a picture," the Beast quipped. "Like the ones Plover took of me."

Dean Fogg fell to his knees. "Martin?"

"Do you feel powerless and violated as I did?" the Beast shrieked from behind the leaf which shielded his face.

"Please," Fogg asked. "Don't hurt anyone else. It's me that you want to suffer."

The Beast lowered the leaf and revealed his face. Martin's adult face. "But you are suffering, my Dear Dean, as is the school which obtained its financial security from Plover. Every student here shall die."

Where was Quentin? It was one of the four squares in the right corner. Even if he guessed correctly, however, he needed to distract the Beast. Battle magic had failed every time, the Beast's counter-magic was too good.

Fogg considered who the Beast was and what motivated him. Driving everything the Beast did was a fear of exposure, of revealing again the nakedness that Plover had photographed. Why else would the photos in the cabinet have been scorched?

"Roll," the Beast bellowed. The die flew toward Dean Fogg.

Fogg caught it and scanned the squares. What other traps waited for him on this deadly gameboard? Oh to be back in the garden again, tending the flowers.

The garden. The moths.

What if, instead of distracting the Beast with battle magic, Fogg attacked the Beast's suit? Would that bring back the feelings of exposure and humiliation that had made him a monster? Would it be enough of a distraction?

Part of him hated the idea. Martin Chatwin, if there was any humanity left in him, had suffered enough. Still, hurting him was better than letting the students of Brakebills die.

Fogg raised his arms and flapped. "Hasharet alet!" he cried.

At once a cloud of moths materialized around them, a ravening cloud that would devour both the leaf the Beast had used to hide his face and the clothing he used to cover his body.

The Beast screamed under the onslaught.

Fogg rolled the die, targeting the gray square where he hoped Quentin was hidden and worked his magic furiously. Quentin materialized, bound to a chair, alive but bleeding. Fogg made a slicing motion with his hands, and Quentin's bonds fell away.

"Quentin!" Fogg said. "Your vortex spell! Cast it now!"

It had been the winning spell of Quentin's last game of Welters, a dark and spinning vortex which whirled above the game board sucking the very air from the room. No one had appreciated what it was at the time, only that it was powerful. Since then, Fogg had studied the spell and knew it for what it was: a way to stop the Beast.

Quentin wriggled and twisted his fingers as the Beast flailed and sputtered in his fight with the moths. The distraction was working better than Fogg had hoped, but would it be good enough?

It was. At last, Quentin summoned the dark and spinning hole in spacetime. Fogg added his power to Quentin's, making the vortex larger, more powerful. The wind howled.

"Stop!" Quentin said. "We won't be able to control it!"

"That's the idea," Fogg said.

Suddenly, Quentin gasped, blood ran from his mouth, and he fell to the floor. Somehow, the Beast had mastered the moth spell, using the hungry insects to cover himself.

But the Beast was too late.

The vortex took hold of both Fogg and the Beast, sweeping them up into its realm of eternal darkness. They tumbled together, weightless in the black.

"Now you die, painfully and slowly," the Beast howled.

"It's okay," Fogg said. "No one will see us ever again."

The Beast looked around. He gestured, attempting to open a portal. He failed. "No," he said. He tried again. Nothing.

Fogg smiled. The last part was up to Jane Chatwin. All she had to do was to forego casting the spell to restart the timeline and let the events of this one stand. All she had to do was nothing, just as Fogg had done when he'd found out what Plover was doing to Martin.

"I'm sorry I failed you, Martin. I want you to know that," Fogg said.

The Beast gestured. Pain tore at Fogg's insides. Death came quicker than he expected.