The Magicians by Lev Grossman Page A

hair. Penny, he says his name is. Can’t be his real name.
    “This is the only magical school in North America,” Fogg went on, leaning back behind his desk. He almost seemed to be enjoying Quentin’s discomfort. “There’s one in the UK, two on the Continent, four in Asia, and so on. One in New Zealand for some reason. People talk a lot of guff about American magic, but I assure you we are quite up to the international standard. In Zurich they still teach phrenology, if you can believe that.”
    Something small but heavy fell off Fogg’s desk with a clunk. He bent to retrieve it: a silver statue of a bird that seemed to be twitching.
    “Poor little thing,” he said, petting it with his large hands. “Someone tried to change it into a real bird, but it got stuck in between. It thinks it’s alive, but it’s much too heavy to fly.” The metal bird cheeped feebly, a dry clicking noise like an empty pistol. Fogg sighed and put it away in a drawer. “It’s always launching itself out of windows and landing in the hedges.
    “Now.” The Dean leaned forward and steepled his fingers. “Should you choose to matriculate here, we’ll do some minor illusion work with your parents. They can’t know about Brakebills, of course, but they’ll think you’ve been accepted to a very prestigious private institute—which isn’t at all far from the truth—and they’ll be very proud. It’s painless and quite effective, as long as you don’t say anything too obvious.
    “Oh, and you’ll start right away. The semester begins in two weeks, so you’ll have to skip the rest of your senior year. But I really shouldn’t be telling you all this before we’ve done your paperwork.”
    Fogg took out a pen and a fat sheaf of closely handwritten paper that looked like a treaty between two eighteenth-century nation-states.
    “Penny signed yesterday,” he said. “Very quick Examination, that boy. What do you say?”
    So that was it, that was the sales pitch. Fogg put the papers in front of him and held out the pen. Quentin took it, a fancy-looking metal fountain pen as thick as a cigar. His hand hovered over the page. This was ridiculous. Was he really going to throw everything away? Everything: everybody he knew, James and Julia, whatever college he would have gone to, whatever career he would have had, everything he thought he’d been getting ready for. For this? This bizarre charade, this fever dream, this fancy-dress role-playing game?
    He stared out the window. Fogg watched him impassively, just waiting for him to fall for it. If he cared one way or the other, he wasn’t letting on. The little floundering metal bird, having escaped its drawer, butted its head industriously against the wainscoting.
    And then a vast stony weight suddenly lifted off Quentin’s chest. It felt like it had been there his entire life, an invisible albatross, a granite millstone holding him down, and all at once it just dropped away and disappeared without a splash. His chest expanded. He was going to bob up to the ceiling like a balloon. They were going to make him a magician, and all he had to do was sign. Jesus, what the hell was he thinking? Of course he was going to sign. This was everything he’d always wanted, the break he’d given up on years ago. It was right in front of him. He was finally on the other side, down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass. He was going to sign the papers and he was going to be a motherfucking magician. Or what the hell else was he going to do with his life?
    “Okay,” Quentin said evenly. “All right. On one condition: I want to start now. I want to stay in that room. I don’t want to go home.”
     
     
    They didn’t make him go home. Instead, his things arrived from home in a collection of duffel bags and rolly suitcases, packed by his parents, who had, as Fogg promised, somehow been squared with the idea that their only child was suddenly matriculating in the middle of the semester at a