Lev Grossman

The journey was the test, and she had arrived. She was in.

She could barely even remember what it felt like to be where she belonged, on the same side of the glass as everybody else.

Anyway, what’s wrong with a little unreality?” Quentin said. “Unreality is underrated.

Penny was the only person he’d ever met who loved magic, really loved it, the same way he did: naively, romantically, completely.

They were fixing the world. But Quentin preferred it broken.

Most people wouldn’t even notice the change, of course, but if you knew about it, knew what you’d lost, it would eat away at you.

Everything would simply be what it was and nothing else. All there would be was what you could see. What you felt and thought, all the longing and desire in your heart and mind, would count for nothing. With magic you could make those feelings real. They could change the world. Without it they would be stuck inside you forever, figments of your own imagination.

That was the quest. It wasn’t fake, and it wasn’t a game, it was real. It mattered after all. They’d been fighting for magic all along. They just hadn’t known it.

She didn’t seem to care much, but Quentin kept it up anyway. You never knew what might make a difference.

Maybe this was one of those times when being a hero didn’t involve looking particularly brave. It was just doing what you should.