The Magicians

Quentin leaves the monastery in search of the Questing Beast, journeying far and wide to find it. The hunt takes him across lands he has never seen or heard of in the Fillory books. Quentin pays a crew to ferry him across a western sea, until he arrives “five weeks” (387) later on “an unknown continent” (387). After disembarking, Quentin catches up to the Questing Beast “on the third night” (388) and shoots the stag with an arrow. The Questing Beast then tells Quentin he has three wishes.

With his first wish, Quentin asks the Questing Beast to restore Penny’s hands. The Questing Beast tells Quentin he can’t because he can’t find Penny. Quentin then asks that Alice be brought back. The Questing Beast informs Quentin that he can’t because there are rules he has to abide by. The Questing Beast decides to count Quentin’s failed wishes as one wish. With his two remaining wishes, Quentin then asks that his crew be paid off at twice as much as he offered them, and for his final wish asks the Questing Beast to send him back to New York. Both of these wishes are granted.

Once back in New York, Quentin decides to spend time getting a feel for the real world again. He finds a “dark, empty basement bar in Chinatown where he used to go with the Physical Kids” (390), and orders a drink. There, Quentin runs into Anais, and she brings him up to speed on some of the others. She tells of how the centaurs couldn’t restore Penny’s hands and that Penny chose to stay in the Neitherlands, entering a building containing countless books. She describes how Richard came to help them, and how they carried Quentin to the monastery. After Anais leaves, Quentin pulls out a key Professor Fogg once gave him and uses it to return to Brakebills.

Quentin is now working in New York for Plaxco, as a “junior member of the […] account team” (393). Professor Fogg has helped to place him there. Quentin has left the world of magic behind him, and spends most of his free time participating in “meaningless entertainments and distractions” (395). His work is not taxing, and involves little more than attending the odd meeting and shuffling files.

In one particular meeting, however, he encounters Emily Greenstreet. She asks that they meet for lunch, and Quentin reluctantly agrees. Over lunch, they a drink a lot and talk about how they are coping. Emily asks Quentin if he misses magic, and he tells her that he never thinks about it anymore. She misses magic, she tells Quentin, but doesn’t regret leaving Brakebills. Lunch turns into an afternoon of drinking, and Quentin tells her all that happened to him and to Alice. Emily then asks Quentin to have dinner with her in her apartment. Quentin is tempted but decides he’s not ready and departs.

A month passes and the cold of November settles upon New York. Quentin is staring out his office window, seemingly reconciled to the “hypnotic” (400) meaninglessness of his life. Then, all of a sudden, “the tinted floor-to-ceiling window […] of Quentin’s office shattered and burst inward” (400). Outside the window, Quentin sees three people “floating in midair […] thirty stories up” (400). He instantly recognizes Eliot and Janet, and, eventually, Julia. They want him to stop hiding and to join them back in Fillory, as one of the kings. Quentin immediately thinks of Alice and that returning to Fillory will only make things worse. He looks around his office and then examines “the blue stone ball” (402) they had used to break his window. Seconds later, “loosening his tie with one hand, Quentin stepped out into the cold clear winter air and flew” (402).