Lev Grossman

Things so often went wrong. Was it him? Was he making the same mistake over and over again? Or different mistakes? He’d like to think he was at least making different mistakes.

It would be like Prospero’s island, but in a good way: not a country of exile, a model world, safe and peaceful and private. A magician’s land.

“But in real life that guy never turns up. He’s never there. He’s busy handing out advice in the next universe over. In our world no one ever knows what to do, and everyone’s just as clueless and full of crap as everyone else, and you have to figure it all out by yourself. And even after you’ve figured it out and done it, you’ll never know whether you were right or wrong. You’ll never know if you put the ring in the right volcano, or if things might have gone better if you hadn’t. There’s no answers in the back of the book.”

Quentin hugged him so hard that Eliot spilled his whiskey down his front, which he complained about loudly, but Quentin didn’t care. He had to make sure Eliot was real and solid. It made no sense that he was here, but thank God he was. Quentin had had enough of sadness and horror and futility for one day. He needed a friend, somebody who knew him from the old days.

And seeing Eliot here, out of the blue, for no reason whatsoever, felt like proof that impossible things were still possible. He needed that too.

He’d wanted to create something, make something new, be somebody new, but it was becoming apparent that he couldn’t, not until he’d dealt with something old. Not until he’d cleared his debts and laid his ghosts to rest.

Something had gone wrong, and more and more he was starting to think that the problem was him.

The old Quentin might have done it, but he wasn’t a creature of fear anymore, jumping at his own shadow, never knowing who he was or why. When he was younger it seemed like the only time he wasn’t afraid was when he was angry. He’d been so full of fear and self-doubt that the only way he could think of to be strong was to attack the world around him.

How could somebody like you create something that was alive? You’re a hollow man! There’s nothing inside you. All you could make was that cold, dead mirror-house.

This was my best thing. My best thing. I thought I would always have it, but I was wrong.