The Magicians

Through his time at Brakebills, Quentin hasn’t been able to quite shake the feeling that it will all “vanish around him like a daydream” (106). In fact, only now has Quentin come to realize that Brakebills is not some fantasy in his head, and that it is “time he started acting like who he was: a nineteen-year-old student at a secret college for real, actual magic” (106).

Though assigned to the Physical Kids, Quentin still spends the majority of his time with other Third-Year students. His curriculum has changed and now focuses more on “actual spellcasting” (108), and includes “spells to strengthen foundations and rain-proof roofs” (108). Quentin also meets Bigby, a Pixie, whom Quentin works with “on alternate Tuesdays” (109). Bigby “specialize[s] in ridiculously difficult enchantments that transmuted elements by manipulating their structure on a quantum level” (109).

One particular morning, Quentin is attending a lecture by Professor March on “weather magic” (109). Finding himself bored, he decides to play a prank by using a little magic to cause the professor’s podium to rock back and forth. Moments later, “everything went completely askew and then righted itself again as if nothing happened,” with the exception that “there was now a man standing behind Prof. March” (111). Quentin notes that he is unable to see the man’s face, “because there was a small leafy branch in front of it that partially obscured his features […] it just hung there in front of the man’s face” (111). Everything in the classroom then stops and goes silent.

Quentin, Professor March, Alice, as well as every other student in the class, “had stopped speaking and froze in place” (112). Only the strange little man remains able to move, as he goes about “exploring his new environment” (112); indifferent to the people in the room. In fact, the only thing that draws his attention is a ship’s clock, which he utterly destroys. Hours pass, and still Quentin and the others remain frozen. All of a sudden, Quentin hears Amanda Orloff “chanting a spell” (113). Then just as abruptly, her voice goes silent.

Afternoon arrives, and still nothing changes. Quentin hears voices past the classroom walls, and the “sounds of hammering” (113), but this does little to disturb the strange man holding the students and teacher in place. Quentin’s thoughts begins to drift and suddenly the man begins to sing and then vanishes. Quentin and the others all collapse. Later, Quentin learns that Professor Fogg and the entire faculty spent hours trying to break in. Quentin also learns that “The Beast” (115), as Fogg calls the man, is from another world, and that he was able to breach this world because something had interrupted Professor March’s spell. Upon hearing this, “Quentin convulsed inwardly but kept his face composed. […] He had done it” (115).

Despite his mistake, Quentin feels “only good things” (116); nothing bad happened, and “disaster had been averted. He had made a terrible mistake, but everything was all right now” (116). Quentin has not yet been told that a fellow student, Amanda Orloff, is dead, consumed alive by The Beast.

Vigilance marks the rest of Quentin’s Third Year term: “In the weeks that followed the attack the school was locked down both physically and magically” (117). There is a sense of fear in the air, and students are quick to anger. After helping secure the college, Professor March goes on sabbatical. The good feeling Quentin once had is now gone and he “wishe[s] he could run away” (118).

Quentin feels responsible for Amanda’s death but doesn’t know how to atone without confessing to the prank he played on Professor March. Third Year concludes, and following summer break, the Physical Kids return early to Brakebills.

The mood on campus remains “sober and subdued” (119). Quentin and Alice are now Fourth-Year students. The Brakebills administration mandates that all Disciplines enter a team in the upcoming “Welters” (119) tournament. Janet organizes the Physical Kids for a practice at the Welters board.

In Welters, players:

capture squares with magic, or protect them, or recapture them by superseding an earlier spell. Water squares [are] the easiest, metal the hardest. […] Eventually a player [is] supposed to step bodily onto the board, becoming in effect a playing piece in his or her own game, and as such vulnerable to direct, personal attacks (121).

Quentin, Alice, Elliott, Josh, and Janet practice for the Welters competition and drink, allowing them to finally feel like “teenagers again” and lifting “the gray gloom the Beast had cast over the school” (122). This feeling does not last, however, as practice turns into competition and joy gives way to a growing lack of “enthusiasm” (124) from all the Physical Kids. Professor Fogg arranges the tournament to last until the “end of the semester” (124), by which time Welters has become merely a chore that Quentin and the others must complete. Despite the tedium of the weekend matches, Quentin and Eliot become quite adept at playing Welters, and together with the other Physical Kids manage to get themselves into the “school championship” (125).

The match is scheduled for early November, on a cold and windy Saturday morning. The Physical kids are set to play the Natural Discipline, but as they arrive, they notice that Josh is absent. Josh has struggled throughout the tournament with maintaining control over his magic, and Eliot feels they will be better off without him. Quentin is concerned, and decides to go looking for Josh. He finds Josh in the library talking to a “thin man” (128) wearing a “black suit” (128). Quentin has seen the man before; “he was the magical bric-a-brac dealer who turned up once or twice a year […] loaded down with […] charms and fetishes” (128). Josh hopes that “Lovelady” (128), the name the man goes by, has something to give him a little boost to help him through his classes and manage his emotions, so that he can better control his magic.

The championship match has already started by the time Quentin and Josh return, and the Physical Kids are losing badly. However, with Quentin and Josh's help, they make a stunning comeback. Josh secures the championship when he succeeds in hitting a Natural Discipline player with his final throw. To celebrate, Quentin lifts Alice onto his shoulder and leaps into the “freezing, cleansing water” (133).