A week had passed, and Lilly loved every minute of it. She'd finally found someplace she felt at home. Since arriving, Lilly had eaten up every bit of magical information she could, still in shock that this place was real and not a dream. The classes were straight out of Hogwarts, her favorite being her spellcasting class, and Alchemy quickly became the bane of her existence.

There was a reason Lilly hadn't gone into the fields of math or science. Dani had been helping her study, lending her superior knowledge of magic to the less fortunate muggle-born. She grew much closer with Dani and Alex and spent long hours talking and exploring the campus with them. Quentin joined them on occasion, though he'd been in a mood as of late.

Having gone to see Julia a few days prior for her birthday, he'd been blindsided by the fact that she hadn't been erased properly, and still remembered that magic existed. The way Quentin had described her state made Lilly worry about the woman she barely knew. She was broken, empty, and practically begged him to tell the school about her, for him to do something. Lilly couldn't blame her. She was sure that if their roles were reversed, she'd react the same way. She couldn't imagine how excruciating it would be to see a world of magic and wonder and then be forced to return to your mundane life, to have a world ripped away from you because you couldn't pass a test.

Lilly sat in the common room, curled up in an armchair to study for her History of Magic class. The class would make anyone fall asleep even if they drank five Red Bull before entering. If teaching didn't work out, Professor Weatherly had a backup career as a hypnotist. The information was fascinating, the presentation- lifeless. The dorm was almost empty at this point, leaving Lilly in rare silence.

She would normally study in the library, but the roaring fire enticed her more than a walk across campus. She found herself sinking into her thoughts rather than focusing on her studies. Lilly wondered about her mother and friends she left behind in New York- if they'd bought the illusion Dean Fogg had spun. Lilly hadn't called or texted anyone outside of Brakebills since the first day she arrived. Once she realized that magic was real, the rest of her life had taken a backseat. She scrolled through her contacts until she found her mother's number. She listened patiently as it rang three, four, five times, and was about to hang up when her mother's perky British accent floated through the speaker.

"Hello, Darling! I'm so proud of you! Getting into grad school, and a full scholarship, too!"

"Hi, Mum! It's amazing here, I'm learning a lot," Lilly felt horrible for lying, but she knew Evelyn wouldn't understand. It was better off this way. A muffled roar of unintelligible voices sounded from the background, "where are you? Why is it so loud?"

"Sorry, I'm at a work event, just a little soiree The British Museum is throwing," this information was of no surprise. Her mother worked as a curator for museums, most recently, The British Museum. She was always traveling to different places, delivering and coordinating exhibits.

"How are you, Mum? We haven't had a proper chat in a while."

"Oh, everything's fine! Working hard, getting things done, you know, the usual," Evelyn's words were rushed, "listen, I have to go, they need me, but I'm going to be in New York in a few weeks delivering something for the Guggenheim. Lunch? We can go to that pizza place you love. I have something important to speak with you about."

"Sounds good, Mum," Lilly deflated, though her mother took no notice. Lilly was disappointed that she didn't have time to talk, but expected it as always. She wondered what was so important to warrant a visit to her only daughter. It wasn't often that her mother took time away from her busy life to spend time with her, "better not keep them waiting."

"Love you! Goodbye!" Her mother hung up abruptly.

"Love you too," but no one was listening, only the dial tone. She continued to scroll through her contacts, placing a call to her best friend, Cara. The phone rang with no response, directing her to leave a message.

"You've reached Cara. Sorry, I can't take your call right now -" Lilly's head snapped up as a bang echoed through the dorm.

"Hello?" Lilly called- no answer. She dropped the call, abandoning her armchair. The racket continued, a repetitive slam and crash coming from the back door. She crept towards it, calling out again with no answer, "I swear to God, if someone is playing a joke on me, I'm gonna kill you!" She grabbed the knob, bracing for someone to jump out at her. Her eyes widened at the sight of a vibrant green forest laid out ahead of her, rays of sunlight illuminated the clearing. She knew immediately where she was- Fillory. She stepped out into the clearing and made her way through the masses of vine-draped branches. Jane Chatwin sat on what could only be described as a swing, constructed by thousands of vines intertwined.

"Took you long enough," Jane spoke, eyeing Lilly with a displeased expression, "I've been waiting," Lilly meandered towards her, amazed at how vivid these dreams were.

"You're a dream, I can't be late if I made you up," Jane laughed at her in the same way someone would laugh at a babbling child. She stood from her seat, materializing a foot away.

"Yes, I am a dream, but why on earth should that mean I am not real? I'd have thought you of all people would know that."

"What do you-"

"Enough small talk, you haven't heeded my advice," Jane circled Lilly, sizing her up, "you haven't prepared yourself for what is to come. At this rate, you'll be dead soon, and we'll have to start all over again."

"Would you stop being so vague? How am I supposed to prepare myself for something when I don't even know what it is?" Lilly was becoming increasingly perturbed by Jane's cryptic language.

"You will know soon enough," Jane held out a hand, "here, take this," she opened her fingers to reveal a glass horse almost identical to the one Alice had made in class the other day.

"What does a glass horse have to do with anything?" Lilly scoffed, reaching out to take the object. On closer inspection, she noticed that the creature was missing an ear, probably chipped off at some point.

"Find Quentin, you'll know what to do."

"What-"

"Enough, you must wake up, wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"

Lilly shot up in her armchair, never having left. Her heart beat fast from the jolt to consciousness. A glance at the clock revealed it was eleven o'clock and a few people had returned to the dorms, studying at the tables across the entryway. Something sharp dug into her hand, and she glanced down to find the same glass horse resting in her palm. "Yes, I am a dream, but why on earth should that mean I am not real,' Jane's voice echoed in her mind as she stared at the object that shouldn't exist. Picking up her phone, she quickly texted Quentin, asking where he was. It took a moment but a response came through.

Navar's classroom with Alice, come meet us -- Q

Lilly hastily gathered her things and headed out the door. It only took her a few minutes to reach the building as it wasn't very far from the dorm. She'd just started down the hall when two people rounded the corner towards her. They met in the middle beside the classroom door. Penny looked less than pleased to see her, a woman close behind, someone named Kady. Lilly had seen her in class, but they'd never spoken. She had a wild mane of jet black curls piled atop her head and striking gray eyes that watched her with disinterest.

"What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he fired back to which Lilly gave him an honest answer.

"I'm meeting Quentin and Alice, your turn," he shook his head.

"I don't owe you an explanation," Penny pushed the classroom door open forcefully. Inside, Quentin and Alice sat across from each other, between them lay a cloth beneath scattered bowls and flickering candles. It didn't take a genius to figure out that they were casting.

"Uh, hi, so..." Penny mumbled as he tried to find the right words.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Kady groaned, "you were sent here to help these losers?"

"Sent?" Alice cocked her head to the side, "who sent you?

"No one," Penny snapped defensively, "look, I gather you guys need some extra hands or something."

"That's interesting, because I was sent here too," Lilly confessed, observing her peer's confused faces, "I had a dream- or vision- maybe? I was told to find Quentin, and they gave me this," Lilly produced the chipped horse from her pocket holding it out for everyone to see.

"Where did you get that?" Alice gasped, quickly snatching the horse and cradling it against her chest like a mother would an infant, "this was Charlie's," she whispered, eyes misty.

"Who's Charlie?" Penny asked, just as clueless as Lilly.

"My brother, that's who we're trying to summon," Alice explained, "the spell says we need five people, each one magically adept, and here they are. Please, come sit down, this is perfect timing," Alice sat beside Quentin, leaving the other side of the cloth open. Penny and Kady sat across from them and Lilly took a spot at the end between the two couples. "The horse you brought..." Alice swallowed painfully, this was obviously a touchy subject, and Lilly put two and two together to figure out that Charlie died, "Charlie used to make glass horses for me when we were kids. I loved horses and I still do, but this horse- this was the first one I ever made myself. He'd been trying to teach it to me for months and I finally managed to do it. He was so proud of me that he gave it a place of honor on his dresser," she inhaled sharply and Lilly could tell she was struggling to keep tears at bay. "When Charlie died, my mom threw a fit. She started trashing his bedroom, saying that she couldn't stand to see all his things anymore. It was too painful. She knocked the horse over and it chipped. I managed to save it before it got thrown out with the rest of his things. We need something of emotional value to him to do the summoning. I don't have much left of his things, so I was hoping that I could be used. It was hidden in my room at home, how did you get it?"

"I told you, I had a dream and the person in my dream gave it to me. I woke up and it was in my hand."

"Was this person blonde, tall? Was it Charlie?" Alice looked so hopeful that it pained Lilly, to tell the truth.

"No, it was Jane Chatwin, from Fillory and Further," Alice and Quentin shared a look while Penny complained.

"I'm surrounded by nerds," Lilly glared at him before turning her attention back to Alice.

"What aren't you telling me?"

"I had a dream too," Quentin told her, unraveling a cloth from his palm. "Jane Chatwin gave me this," a massive sigil was branded into his palm, red and festering.

"It was the key piece of the spell, I have no idea how he got it," Alice told her, completely lost as to how they both received essential parts of her spell.

"Can we get this over with?" Penny asked them, clearly annoyed. Alice nodded, placing the correct ingredients in their corresponding parts.

"Join hands please," Alice instructed, and they all did except for Penny.

"I am not holding your hand Quentin," Q had reached out to take Penny's hand, but he was not having it. It was a few moments of arguing before Kady finally switched seats with Penny so that he wouldn't have to hold his hand. Penny groaned when he realized that he would have to hold Lilly's hand instead. "I just can't win, can I?" He reluctantly took her hand, completing the circle.

Alice led them in a chant and the bowl of viscous red liquid within the circle began to boil. The five of them completed the spell, waiting until midnight for Charlie to arrive through the mirror they'd spelled. The seconds ticked by agonizingly slow, but when the clock struck midnight, nothing happened, no Charlie. They stared expectantly at the mirror but their spell must not have worked. Alice's eyes stared straight ahead, the grief and disappointment clear as day. Penny and Kady took off as soon as they realized nothing was happening, leaving them to clean up.

"I'm so sorry, Alice," Lilly's attempt at comfort fell flat, Alice just ignored her. Once cleaned up, she sent Alice a quick goodbye and headed back to the dorm.

➺➺➺➺

Lilly barely slept that night, tossing and turning with questions as to why the spell hadn't worked. They had all the ingredients and they had enough people. So why hadn't it worked? These thoughts plagued her throughout the next day, obstructing her usually laser focus when it came to school work. She walked into her Alchemy class that afternoon and took a seat beside Alice. Lilly didn't bother trying to engage her in conversation, she knew how disappointed she'd been after the failed summoning.

"Always pay close attention to the alloys," Professor Navar advised, "iron has a neutral quality, whereas silver and gold have the effect of magnifying the components of the alloy-"

The Professor had lost Lilly at 'pay close attention', but she wasn't the only one completely bored. Quentin was playing with a coin at his desk on the other side of the room, while Penny and Kady fooled around in the back. She was trying her best to keep up with the lesson, but it became increasingly difficult when the professor started speaking German.

"From the famous German poet and wizard, Kruk-" Navar began another stream of German. Lilly was just about to ask Alice if she knew what was going on when something very peculiar happened. Every muscle and bone in her body froze. The Professor stopped mid-sentence, his body freezing up as well. Her eyes darted about frantically as she tried to figure out what was happening. Everyone that she could see from the position she was stuck in was frozen in place too. She figured it was a prank by one of the upperclassmen, meant to mess with the newbies.

Then she heard something- something eerily familiar. Thousands of fluttering wings and then, footsteps. A chill went down her spine, whatever this was, it was not good. The footsteps moved leisurely from the back of the room, all the way to the front. Lilly's heart was beating out of her chest now as she felt a pair of wings brush up against her and then another and another until she was swarmed by countless moths. Then, if it was even possible, her eyes got wider as she saw the man- no- The Beast, before her. She had prayed she would never see it again, but here it was. The Beast that had haunted her nightmares as a child occupied the classroom, clear as day. She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she possibly could. She urged herself to wake up. For this could only be the product of a nightmare.

But deep down, she knew, there was no waking up from this nightmare. All she could do was pray that it wouldn't see her and it would move on. To her utter relief, it did. Moving past her to the front of the room, pausing before the frozen figure of Professor Navar. Her relief soon turned to horror as she watched The Beast use his magic to crush Navar's windpipe. He dropped like a stone. She screamed, but her mouth wouldn't move and neither would her legs. She was trapped, like a fly in a web.

The Beast turned to face the terrified students just as a bang sounded from the back of the room. A spell flew past Lilly's periphery and slammed The Beast back into the table behind him. This didn't do much and within seconds of being hit, the moth man had recovered, using his own spell on whomever their would-be savior was.

Lilly heard a strangled gasp from the back but was unable to see from her current position. Things were quiet for a moment before a ghastly symphony of ripping and squishing filled the room. A body dropped and the deafening silence returned. The uncertainty was killing her, not knowing what was happening or if they would even make it out alive.

The sound of a coin dropping hit her ears and from where she was seated she could just barely see Quentin. She knew it had been him, he'd been playing with a quarter before they were all frozen. The footsteps picked up again and Lilly prayed that the monster would ignore the sound. Her prayers were not answered. She watched as The Beast made its way to Quentin, leaning forward to get a better look.

"Quentin Coldwater, there you are..."