"...Oliver?"

But he steps back. If Jules is scared, then he should be. He's missing something. Something in the tone or the body language that he's not picking up on, he never does and for once it really does feel like a 'cognitive deficit'- he grabs her hand. She'll squeeze it if it's time to run.

Oliver Chatwin laughs. It's not a nice sound. It's oppressive and the forest around them silences in reaction.

"Excellent! I thought perhaps she had chosen a couple of idiots. I never should have doubted her. You two will do nicely, I'm sure."

He squeezes Julia's hand and runs. He finds himself cursing puberty for not making her taller- he's not even sure how height works, actually, he'll have to look it up- if he gets home. He could die here, at the hands of his childhood hero- how lame is that, aspiring to be a fictional character and then getting killed by him? Why is Oliver Chatwin evil, anyway? He is evil, right? Quentin thinks about turning around- but Jules thought so, too, and she's better at that.

He's not sure they're going to be fast enough.

This is not how this is supposed to go! This is Fillory. You're not supposed to run into a crazed English schoolboy in your first hour and be murdered by him!

She yanks Q and pulls him back towards the direction they came from, maybe they can find that stupid clock and get home and he won't be able to reach them -

Oliver appears in front of them in a swarm of moths. His hands move in a complicated pattern and the air hardens and strikes out at Julia.

"Oh, I've missed this. You really can't run, you know. This is my world."

Julia falls in a heap, her chest cut open and blood everywhere.

"JULES!"

Probably it's really stupid to stop for Julia. Probably she's already dead and staying is going to kill him- it's so much blood and he can't put it back, he keeps trying to think of how he could just get the blood back in there so she'd be fine but now he's bent down over her body not moving a sitting duck and-

"Why," he croaks, voice hoarse.

She doesn't give him time to wonder.

She grabs his hand and pulls, casting a brilliant spray of color behind her.

"What, where, Jules is back there!"

"Please do shut up, I need to outrun him."

She mumbles something foreign which Quentin doesn't understand, twists her hand ever so, and their feet begin to shimmer as though the ground has baked in the oppressive heat of this eternal summer.

He's really not one for running.

"Jane, my dearest sister. I've missed you. Don't you think this has gone on for long enough?"

"That's why you're here, Oliver, and not out there, where you could hurt more people."

She just has to get close enough to where the portal is without letting him see- or at least without him following her.

-Quentin's eyes go to the portal-

-damnit. She runs for it, pulling the foolish boy after her.

"You're getting sloppy in your old age, Jane. You can't save all of them. Evidently."

To prove this point he twists his magic again, cuts down the boy, and steps between her and the portal.

-well. She has a way out, doesn't she. She just can't use it in front of him. She's already cast the spell before he's finished talking- she was always faster, even though he has always, always been stronger- she transposes their positions. Now she's between him and the portal, and now she's through. She smashes the clock behind her.

She'll need to do that again, though. And she'll need to watch out for this 'Quentin' and 'Jules'.