The Magicians

Quentin discovers his parents have sold their house in Brooklyn and moved to Boston. He stays with them during summer break but quickly becomes bored. Quentin decides to go “on a Fillory binge” (167) and reads about how the two Chatwin girls are “shanghaied into Fillory,” how “Helen embarks on a hunt for the mysterious Questing Beast,” and about the girls’ curiosity as to what happened to Martin Chatwin (167). The tone and ending of The Wandering Dune, the last book in the series, leaves Quentin unsatisfied. He wonders “where Plover could possibly have gone with the story in the notebook Quentin lost.

After finishing the books, Quentin decides to take his father’s bike to explore the Chesterton region of Boston. He comes across an old “seventeenth-century graveyard” (171) and is confronted by woman who pushes him up against a tree. She has a “wild” look about her and is “dressed in a raggedy goth outfit—her arms […] wrapped in what look[s] like black electrical tape. There [are] scabby red scratches on the backs of her hands” (171). Quentin realizes that this person is Julia, his old high school friend.

Julia tells Quentin how she, too, took the Brakebills Exam but failed. The Brakebills faculty were supposed to make her forget she had taken the test, but she can’t forget. She tells Quentin she’s been looking for him for a long time, and knows he’s been at Brakebills. She wants another try and wants Quentin to help her. At first, Quentin tells her there’s nothing he can do, and that he could be expelled if he helps her. However, seeing Julia rekindles “the old electrical field […] between them” (174), and he relents. Quentin tells her that the college is in upstate New York, but invisible, and that not even he knows where it is. Quentin says he will talk to Professor Fogg on her behalf while thinking to himself that the professors will likely enact a more thorough memory wipe this time, which “would all be for the best” (175).

Quentin returns to Brakebills. Janet tells him about Alice’s walk to the South Pole. Quentin follows Alice up to her room and they talk about Fillory. Alice tells Quentin how there “really was a Chatwin family” (78) and that “supposedly they lived next door to Plover” (178), the author of the Fillory series. Alice goes on to tell Quentin that “the real Martin” Chatwin actually did disappear: “one day after breakfast he just vanished, and they never saw him again” (179). Quentin then kisses her and the two have sex.

The other three Physical Kids, Eliot, Janet and Josh, graduate, though “they would be allowed to stay at Brakebills for the rest of the summer” (181). Eliot and Josh begin talking about the Thames Dragon, which surprises Quentin, who doesn’t know there are real dragons. The summer passes, with the Physical Kids boating, playing pool, discussing their dreams, and drinking.

Quentin, Alice, Janet, Eliot and Josh are sitting in “a circle in the vast empty middle of the Sea [on] a baking hot summer day” (184). Josh is trying to put together a Viking spell that will give them increased strength and better vision and hearing. While Josh is preparing the spell, the others spend their time singing and drinking. It is late afternoon by the time Josh completes the spell, but no one feels any different.

Janet then starts telling the story of Emily Greenstreet. Emily Greenstreet was a former student at Brakebills. She was a hardworking student but not exceptional, and had fallen in love with one of the professors. While Emily was pining for the professor, “a boy, some deeply unfortunate boy, fell in love with her” (186). Eventually, Emily and the professor had a “liaison” before the professor realized his mistake, and called the tryst off. Emily became more depressed and started hanging out at the “Woof” (187), a magical fountain, where she saw the reflection of another young woman. Janet decides to name this woman “Doris” (187).

Doris manages to communicate a spell to Emily to help her change her features and win back the professor. However, the spell goes badly wrong and disfigures her. The boy who is in love with Emily decides to come to her rescue and “launche[s] into [a] repair spell” (189). Unfortunately, the spell “got away from him in the worst way possible. It took him over, took his body away […] He burned up […]” (189). The professor who Emily was in love with is able to restore her physical appearance, but is then forced to leave Brakebills. He relocates to Brakebills South—the professor is Mayakovsky.

When Janet finishes the story, Josh discovers that his spell worked, though only on him, and bounds away, wanting to show off his newfound strength to others. Alice, on the other hand, is unhappy with Janet for telling the story. She’s upset because she believes the boy in the story was her brother.