The Last Time: The 39th Rewind

"God, I hope this works," Quentin said. He was nervous. He was not afraid of dying, since apparently he has been really good at that, he was afraid of failing. He wondered what Jane Chattwin would change next time if they failed. He counted his life from the present till the moment he faced the beast. That span might now be minutes. Quentin looked to the clock in Christopher Plover's study. Was it nine o'clock here at the wellspring in Fillory or back on Earth?

"How about 'Thanks Margo, for saving all of our asses.'" Margo rolled her eyes.

"Let's just focus," Alice said. She turned away from the group, and practiced the positions of spells with her fingers. Quentin touched her shoulder. Alice turned to find his lips on her face.

"Whatever happens, I'm glad I found you."

"Me too." Alice kisses him again, this time properly.

Margo returned a flask to Eliot and he raised it towards Quentin with a wink. Eliot had been toasting to "Margo the Destroyer" ever since they returned to Fillory, as if they had already won the battle. Quentin had to admit, whatever they did was brilliant. The group found a man that possessed the only moonstones in Fillory, a substance powerful enough to kill anything. The problem: he only had two stones and the group did not have decades to wait before they reproduced and could be forged into something useful. On top of that, the price was steep.

Cue Eliot and Margo: they walked into his hut, stayed the night, and came out with moonstone crafted into two of Margo's bullets. They watched Quentin pick up a bullet and burn his fingers. It required a special incantation of course, they chided him. They kept forgetting how the words went as Quentin burned himself a dozen times. Finally, after reciting what seemed like a 90's alternative rock song, Quentin caught on. They showed him a pair of magical pincers that crafters use. Eliot hadn't put them down since, insisting he needed them to retrieve the beast-slaying stones for the earrings Margo would wear one day.

"You never told me how you got the moonstone. We tried everything."

"We traded them Earth magic." Eliot grinned and Margo giggled into his vest.

"You taught them Earth magic?" Quentin asked.

"No, we traded them." Eliot said, holding up a bag of different pills, each different sizes, shapes, and colors.

"For all the magic Fillory has, they are lacking in the party department. Did you know they don't have champagne?"

"You got magic-beast-killing bullets and a pair of tongs, while we came out with nothing."

"Well the tongs are a different story," Margo admitted.

"Yea... let's just say we are probably not going to be welcome back to his humble hut anytime soon."

Quentin grabbed a book off the shelf and opened it. There were words across each old page. It was real. He half expected it to be blank.

"Why do you think he chose the study? Of all the places..." he said.

"He does it to taunt me." A new voice was in the room. It was Jane Chattwin.

"He does it to goad me for not being there," Jane continued.

"You're here!" Quentin reached out a hand. It passed through her.

Jane shuddered and pulled her cloak tighter over her shoulders.

"Projection or not Quentin, that is extremely rude and feels... horrid. I'm here to see this through."

"And far away as an insurance policy," Penny said. He looked up from the papers on the desk to find a puzzled Quentin. "You know, in case we all kick the bucket again? Stay with us, man."