The Deceiver | The Magicians

Chapter 11

Eleven | Sleeping Beauty 

"Barbie!" Lilly heard a familiar voice call, busting through her bedroom door. "As much as it pains me to say it, I need your help." Penny stood in front of her and she glanced up from her textbook with a smile on her face.

"You don't know how long I've waited to hear you say that." She told him. "How did you even get here? The place is invisible."

"Alex let me in and this is actually serious. I think there is something wrong with Quentin." That was all it took for her smile to drop. Lilly could tell by the look on his face that he wasn't messing with her and something truly wasn't right with her friend. 

"What happened?" She asked quickly abandoning her seat on the bed to stand in front of Penny. 

"I honestly don't know. One minute I was sleeping and then I heard him singing Taylor Swift so I popped into his dream for a moment to get him to shut the hell up." Lilly nodded for him to continue, "He was in some sort of mental hospital acting like a crazy person and you know the racist little b***h made me into a chicken-curry-loving Indian that cleaned up his messes but you... made quite the sexy nurse." his eyes raked her up and down a smirk playing on his face.

"What exactly is wrong." She asked, irritated by Penny and ignoring the fact that Quentin had a dream with her as a sexy nurse.

"He said he was under some sort of spell, that his dream wasn't his dream at all. He told me to find you and figure out a way to wake him up. I normally wouldn't bother trying to help him but something about the way he acted made me think that it might not be so crazy."

"Um, Ok, here's what we're gonna do." Lilly said, running her hands through her blonde hair anxiously. She was worried about her friend. She couldn't imagine being stuck inside a nightmare, unable to tell what was real and what wasn't. "We are gonna find his body, wherever it may be and we're gonna figure out how to wake him up."

"Great plan," Penny praised sarcastically, "Why didn't I think of that?" Lilly rolled her eyes, grabbing his arm and pulling him along towards the Physical's cottage. Lilly moved as fast as she could across campus, pushing open the door to the cottage and brushing aside Margo's invitation for drinks. Penny followed closely behind, Barging into Quentin's room with her. Lilly gasped as she spotted a pair of legs poking out from the other side of the bed, sprawled on the floor.

"Oh my god, Quentin!" She called in panic, rushing to where he lay, partially obscured from sight.

"You are not Quentin." Penny stated as Lilly jumped back in disgust from the sight of a buck-naked stranger passed out on Quentin's floor. Lilly covered her eyes and backed up behind Penny, letting him take the reins on this one. Penny grabbed a baseball bat that had been propped up against the wall, lightly shoving the guy on the floor and trying to look anywhere but at his exposed skin. The guy let out a groan rolling over and giving the two a full view of his nether regions. 

"Ew" Lilly exclaimed, turning her gaze to the ceiling.

"You act like you've never seen a d**k before." Penny joked, earning a glare from Lilly. 

"I see two right now." The naked guy's eyes fluttered open and it took him a moment to understand his situation. He scrambled to grab a pillow and cover his bits, Lilly silently thanked whatever god there was that he had covered himself up. 

"What the hell?" 

"Shouldn't we be the ones asking you that? Where's Quentin? Did you two f**k last night?" Penny grilled the guy, who did nothing but fumble over his words. 

"What? No, I -"

"Todd, seriously?" Margo's voice sounded from the doorway. "There are a lot of people in the world that I'd like to see naked and you are definitely not one of them." Todd stood, hugging the walls so we wouldn't see his butt again, only to walk forward down the hall, exposing his rear end anyway. "Hmm, he does have a cute butt though." She observed, watching him go.

"Margo, Where's Quentin?" Lilly asked expectantly.

"I don't know, he did get pretty wasted at the party last night though." Soon enough Elliot had joined them and Penny recounted the tale of what had happened to Quentin. 

"Look," Elliot told them as they descended the stairs, "It was a hell of a party. He's probably sleeping it off under something... or someone." The front door of the cottage opened and in stepped Kady.

"Hey" she greeted, diverting their attention, or at least Penny's attention.

"Where've you been?" Penny questioned.

"I had to run into the city." She shrugged nonchalantly, but something about the way she acted told Lilly that Kady was not being a hundred percent truthful with Penny. "What's up?" Lilly could tell by Penny's expression that he didn't believe her either.

"Your lover man here," Elliot explained, "thinks that our little Q got roofied last night."

"Look we covered the house, let's start checking the lab, the library, or whatever." Penny suggested earning a hum of agreement from Lilly. The two began moving towards the door when they were interrupted by Kady.

"I know where he is." She blurted, looking almost guilty. Lilly could tell that there was something she was keeping from them.

"And why exactly do you know this?" Lilly inquired, knowing that Q definitely wouldn't hang out with Kady if he had the choice. Kady ignored the question, leading them to a small storage closet which, sure enough, housed a passed-out Quentin Coldwater. "Q" she called, dropping to her knees beside him and shaking his shoulders. There was no response, not even a groan.

"He crawled in here and passed out about one." Kady explained "not the weirdest I've seen."

"And you didn't think to bring him up to bed, rather than leaving him here?" Lilly asked, irritated and extremely worried about her friend.

"Not my job to babysit every drunk guy who passes out at a party." Lilly returned her look with a little extra dirt to be sure the message was received. Penny reached out to smack Quentin's face a few times, still no response.

"Come on." Penny said, continuing his attempt at waking him up. 

"I think we have established that hitting him is not going to work." Lilly grabbed Penny's arm before he could slap Q again, sensing he was getting a little too into it. "Well he has a pulse and he's breathing."

"That's a good sign." Elliot stated the obvious. 

"Let me try," Kady offered. Lilly hovered close just in case she decided to slap him up a bit like Penny. Kady held her hands over Quentin's chest, seemingly concentrating, but nothing happened. "This is bad." 

"How bad?" Penny asked, worry seeping through his voice.

"Like, we have to tell the Dean bad"

➻➻➻➻

"Hmm..." Dean Fogg spoke, "I thought so." His voice sounded extremely concerned making Lilly's anxiety even worse. The four of them had taken Quentin to Dean Fogg's office in which he was now being examined. "The spell is called the Skarlotti Web. We cannot break it. No one can"

"What do you mean you can't break it! We aren't just going to leave Quentin to die." Lilly protested at the same time Kady said,

"Wait he's not going to wake up ever?"

"I said no one not nothing." 

"Well I mean if you say 'no one can break it', we assume you mean he's gonna die." Penny voiced what everyone was thinking.

"We need to summon the Matarese" Dean Fogg explained, "Please lower the wards." he told his associate who had been assisting him. The man muttered a spell, using an extremely complicated string of hand movements, until the framework for the Brakebills wards were revealed to them. Floating blue mathematical equations floated in the air around them, connected by a web of blue lines. "Very good and now the south wards." 

"Wait," Lilly interjected, realizing something very convenient about Quentin's situation. "Something isn't right here." 

"Yeah Barbie," Penny said sarcastically, "Quentin is dying." The Dean looked at her expectantly, knowing that if she interrupted the process, it must be something important.

"We know that someone did this to Quentin, he didn't put this spell on himself. So why?" She asked, knowing something about this wasn't right. The others looked at her curiously, wondering where she was going with this. "Whomever it was that cast the spell must have known that you had to take down the wards in order to save him. What if someone did this to get into Brakebills." 

"She has a point." Elliot said, looking over at Dean Fogg who was seemingly deep in thought. 

"Yes, a very good one, but If we are going to save Quentin we have to act now. I don't have time to stop whoever it is and save him." 

"I'll go." Kady spoke up, "I can do it." Dean Fogg hesitated a moment before nodding, knowing he didn't have much choice.

"Find Professor Lipson," He instructed quickly. The Matarese had arrived a few seconds before in a golden cage and the Dean's assistant had started to remove it. "Tell her to protect my office. I think I know who it is that we are dealing with." Kady nodded quickly before rushing out of the room. His assistant had successfully removed the creature which Lilly could now see was some sort of golden mechanical scorpion. "Careful," the Dean warned as he carefully placed the creature on Quentin's cheek. As soon as the creature was settled, the Dean began murmuring a spell and his assistant performed the hand movements by his side. 

"That's the answer?" Elliot asked him sounding seriously doubtful that this would work.

"It shorts out the cerebral cortex, which should break him out of the spell, which should bring him back. Halfway."

"What do you mean halfway?"

"The spell is like a prison in the middle of the desert. The Matarese breaks him out of the prison, but you have to get yourself out of the desert and it is a lot easier with a guide. That's where Penny comes in." Penny moved to sit down before he did his traveling. "Though you successfully entered the spell before, it was extremely lucky that you were able to get out without trouble. Because this is a spell and not a dream, it will try it's best to keep you there, especially at such an accelerated stage. That is why we must bind you to someone on this plane, so that when we free Quentin, you are able to return." The Dean turned to look at Lilly, who despite knowing there was no one standing next to her, looked around to make sure he was looking to her. "Lilly." He gestured for her to sit beside Penny on the sofa. 

"I'm sorry, but what?" 

"Why can't Elliot do it?" Penny objected as both Lilly and Elliot agreed.

"Do you want to save Quentin or not?" The Dean asked, knowing very well what their answer was, though Penny seemed to hesitate before nodding. "Like it or not, Elliot is a more experienced Magician and given my current disabilities, we may need him." Lilly sat beside Penny reluctantly and as far away from him as she could get on the small couch. "I need you to hold onto each other's forearms." He told them as his assistant moved towards them with a coil of rope. 

"What kind of kinky s**t have we gotten ourselves into?" Penny asked looking apprehensively towards the rope. Despite both of their reservations they grabbed each other's forearms as the Dean's assistant wrapped the rope around their joined arms, securing it tightly with a knot. The position had left them much closer than they were comfortable with, knees touching as they faced each other on the couch. Elliot sighed from the other side of the room,

"If only I had a camera." Both of them glared at him before turning their attention to Dean Fogg.

"This may sting a bit." He warned before he and his assistant performed the spell. She didn't know what exactly she was expecting to happen, but it definitely was not the burning pain that ensued. The ropes had begun to glow a hot red color, burning into their skin everywhere it touched. The two yelled in pain, gripping each other tightly, watching as the rope melted into their skin. The fibers had sizzled into their arms, leaving behind a tattoo that resembled the rope that had been wrapped around them. Their skin was raw around the edges of the tattoo, but the two let out a relieved breath when it was over. They attempted to remove themselves from each other only to be met with the same resistance as if the ropes still bound them. 

"If we are stuck like this forever I swear I will cut off both our arms." Lilly told Penny who agreed almost immediately. 

"I have no problem with that."

"Enough dicking around! Go save Quentin!" Penny looked to Lilly and the blonde gave him an encouraging nod before he shut his eyes. Just as Penny astral projected himself into Quentin's mind, the Matarese jumped into action. The sounds of Quentin choking could be heard as the scorpion crawled into his mouth, weaseling its way down his throat, on its way to who-knows-where. 

"Nasty" Elliot's voice broke the silence but everyone ignored him.

"What now?" Lilly asked, still attached to Penny. 

"We wait." The next few minutes were filled with silence and the occasional pacing. Lilly's legs were starting to cramp from being stuck in the same position for too long. She was just about to readjust when a burst of pain shot through her arm, eliciting a gasp. The ropes on her arm were starting to burn again, turning red like they had when they first attached themselves to her.

"What's happening?" She yelled in panic and Dean Fogg rushed to assess her. He took her arm in his hands, getting a closer look, while Lilly bit her lip and grasped Penny's arm tighter to prevent the inevitable scream. 

"The spell is trying to pull Penny in. You must hold on until he gets back, no matter how bad the pain." Lilly nodded in understanding, beginning to feel nauseous as the pain increased.

"He better hurry his ass up!" She yelled. Her skin was on fire and sharp jolts of pain shot up her arms. She felt as if she had been running for hours, her energy draining by the second. The ropes looked as if any moment they would burst into flame. Her vision blurred, turning black for a moment, tears springing up in her eyes.

"The spell is pulling her in. We need to keep her mind anchored to--" The Dean's words were cut off as Lilly was thrown into another room entirely. She saw flashes of a hospital, she was running down the hallway as fast as she could, something was wrong... very wrong.

"Lil, Sweetie." Elliot. She was back in the room with Elliot kneeling next to her, his hand gently stroking her hair. The pain was back, burning into her skin, she screamed and thought that her whole arm might fall off if this went on any longer. Dean Fogg was chanting some spell, his assistant casting next to him. They stood around her, clearly working as hard as they could to keep her and Penny from getting stuck. The room dissolved again, replaced with a hospital room. Quentin lay, strapped to a table, a bloody man holding a sharp object inches from his face.

"Get up! There are no straps", a voice told him, her voice. No. Penny's. But it came from her mouth. "This is not a hospital. You are not crazy. You can make it disappear." The Matarese sat on Quentin's chest and he stared at it with fear. He wasn't responding to Penny's instructions, immobilized on the table. "Do it!" The lights began to flicker and suddenly everything went black.

Lilly gasped, slumping to the side as she returned to reality. Penny's eyes shot open hissing when the pain from the ropes hit him. The Dean rushed over to Quentin placing a hand on his head.

"It isn't working." The Dean told them. 

"I don't know, I went there. I told him, the Matarese did its thing, and then - everything went black." Penny told them his words coming out in a stream. The Dean's assistant came over to them, muttering an incantation which made the briefly dormant ropes flare up again, burning their way out of their skin. The two hissed, gripping each other from the pain, until the ropes resurfaced and the assistant removed them. Lilly rubbed her arms, the red marks remaining, much worse on her than on Penny. 

"What do we do?" Lilly asked, desperate to get her friend back.

"There's nothing to do. It's up to him whether he makes it back or not." Penny stood and Lilly went to follow but a wave of dizziness washed over her, causing her to stumble to the side. The pain must have taken a toll on her. The Dean's assistant rushed over to her, handing her a vile of purple liquid.

"Drink this" he said and Lilly was in no shape to argue so she unscrewed the top and downed the liquid. It tasted of sour milk and Lilly almost threw it up right onto Penny but somehow, she managed to get it down without incident. As soon as it hit her stomach the dizziness subsided and she felt much better. She was able to walk without falling over again. She moved over to Quentin's side, kneeling next to him. Just as she took Quentin's hand, the door shot open and in stepped the one person she would never expect. Julia Wicker.

"It was me. I'm the one who cast the spell."

"Julia? What the hell?" Lilly spoke standing quickly from her spot on the floor. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to get this far." Saying that Lilly was angry would be the understatement of the century. She was furious. 

"So, you're saying that you, Quentin's 'best friend', put him under a spell that would inevitably kill him. On purpose."

"Look," Julia continued, ignoring Lilly, tears in her eyes, "I can help. I can give you the exact wording of the spell." Everyone was beyond angry at the girl in front of them. Even Dean Fogg who rarely broke his calm demeanor had his eyes furrowed in frustration.

"It's too late." He practically growled at the brunette.

"It was just supposed to be a joke." Julia whispered to them, looking down.

"Yeah, Bullshit." Elliot growled, "You did it to get even."

"A joke? Are you f*****g kidding me Julia!" Lilly spat at the girl who put her friend through all this pain. "You put him in a mental hospital and told him that everything about magic was actually a delusion. You of all people should have known that would screw him up on a whole nother level." 

"f**k you!" Julia yelled at her. Something snapped inside her and she lunged for the girl, only to have two strong arms wrap around her waist, restraining her from hurting Julia.

"You b***h! He's Dying!"

"Somebody help him!" Julia shouted through her tears. Lilly could tell that she truly was sorry, but it was way past the point of sorry. 

"If I had the exact spell wording one hour ago." Dean Fogg told her through gritted teeth. 

"There's gotta be something."

"Do you have any idea where he is right now?" Penny's voice sounded from behind her, still close enough that he could restrain her again if she tried to strangle Julia. Lilly could tell that he secretly wanted to let her loose on the brunette in front of them. "Why would you do this?"

"She didn't." Dean Fogg stated, "Not by herself. Did you?" Julia's eyes showed fear as she quickly shook her head. A violent coughing drew their attention to one of the couches just in time to see Quentin expel the Matarese from his throat, tossing it halfway across the room. His coughing fit continued, Lilly and Elliot going to help him. Lilly sat next to him on the couch rubbing his back while Elliot perched on top of the couch, stroking his hair. 

"Somebody woke up." Elliot said, patting Q's head.

"Thank god" Lilly told him, to which Penny said, 

"Took your damn time." Lilly rolled her eyes at him, continuing to comfort Quentin, who was still coughing up a storm.

"Someone get him some brandy," Dean Fogg ordered. Of course, Elliot jumped up at the mention of liquor, rushing to locate the bottle. Quentin had finally stopped coughing and rested his head back on the edge of the couch, waiting for Elliot to deliver the alcohol.

"Wait," Elliot paused, "Where's the hedge b***h?" Sure enough, true to form, Julia had disappeared into thin air before she could deal with the consequences of her actions. 

"What?" Quentin asked, confused.

"Nothing. We'll fill you in later." Lilly told him, sharing a knowing look and a sigh with the rest of the group. Lilly knew one thing for sure - Julia was going to have hell to pay.