grotesque divine oversight, which he tolerated with as much good humor as could be expected.
One day Quentin was walking the edge of the great lawn when he came across Eliot leaning against an oak tree, smoking a cigarette and reading a paperback book. It was more or less the same spot where they first met. Because of the odd way Eliot’s jaw was built, the cigarette stuck out at an angle.
“Want one?” Eliot asked politely. He stopped reading and held out a blue-and-white pack of Merit Ultra Lights. They hadn’t spoken since Quentin’s first day at Brakebills.
“They’re contraband,” he went on, not visibly disappointed that Quentin didn’t take one. “Chambers buys them for me. I once caught him in the wine cellar drinking a very good petite syrah from the Dean’s private collection. Stags’ Leap, the ninety-six. We came to an understanding. He’s really a nice fellow, I shouldn’t hold it over his head. Quite a good amateur painter, albeit in a sadly outdated realist mode. I let him paint me once—draped, thank you very much. I was holding a Frisbee. I think I was supposed to be Hyacinthus. Chambers is a pompiste at heart. Deep down I don’t think he believes Impressionism ever happened.”
Quentin had never met anybody so staggeringly and unapologetically affected. It was hard to know how to respond. He summoned up all the wisdom he’d accumulated during his entire life in Brooklyn.
“Merits are for pussies,” he said.
Eliot looked at him appraisingly.
“Very true. But they’re the only cigarette I can stand. Disgusting habit. Come on, smoke one with me.”
Quentin accepted the cigarette. He was in unfamiliar territory here. He’d handled cigarettes before—they were common props in close-up magic—but he’d never actually put one in his mouth. He made the cigarette vanish—a basic thumb palm—then snapped his fingers to bring it back.
“I said smoke it, not fondle it,” Eliot said curtly.
He muttered something under his breath, then snapped his own fingers. A lighter-size flame sprang into being over the tip of his index finger. Quentin leaned in and inhaled.
It felt like his lungs had been crumpled up and then incinerated. He coughed for five solid minutes without stopping. Eliot laughed so hard he had to sit down. Quentin’s face was slick with tears. He forced himself to take another drag and threw up into a hedge.
They spent the rest of that afternoon together. Maybe he felt guilty for giving Quentin the cigarette, or maybe Eliot had decided that the tedium of solitude was ever so slightly greater than the tedium of Quentin’s company. Maybe he just needed a straight man. He led Quentin around the campus and lectured him on the underground lore of life at Brakebills.
“The keen-eyed incoming freshman will have noticed the weather, which is uncommonly clement for November. That’s because it’s still summer here. There are some very old spells on the Brakebills grounds to keep people from spotting it from the river or walking in by accident, that kind of thing. Fine old enchantments. Classic work of their kind. But they’re getting eccentric in their old age, and somewhere in the 1950s time started spinning off its axis here. Gets worse every year. Nothing to worry about, in the larger picture, but we’re a little behind the mainstream. Two months twenty-eight days, give or take a few hours.”
Quentin didn’t know whether to act as awestruck as he felt or try to produce an imitation of cool worldly ennui. He changed the subject and asked about the curriculum.
“You won’t have any choice about your schedule your first year. Henry”—Eliot only ever referred to Dean Fogg by his first name—“makes everybody do the same thing. Are you smart?”
There was no non-embarrassing answer to this.
“I guess.”
“Don’t worry about it, everybody here is. If they even brought you in for the Exam you were the smartest person in your school, teachers
One day Quentin was walking the edge of the great lawn when he came across Eliot leaning against an oak tree, smoking a cigarette and reading a paperback book. It was more or less the same spot where they first met. Because of the odd way Eliot’s jaw was built, the cigarette stuck out at an angle.
“Want one?” Eliot asked politely. He stopped reading and held out a blue-and-white pack of Merit Ultra Lights. They hadn’t spoken since Quentin’s first day at Brakebills.
“They’re contraband,” he went on, not visibly disappointed that Quentin didn’t take one. “Chambers buys them for me. I once caught him in the wine cellar drinking a very good petite syrah from the Dean’s private collection. Stags’ Leap, the ninety-six. We came to an understanding. He’s really a nice fellow, I shouldn’t hold it over his head. Quite a good amateur painter, albeit in a sadly outdated realist mode. I let him paint me once—draped, thank you very much. I was holding a Frisbee. I think I was supposed to be Hyacinthus. Chambers is a pompiste at heart. Deep down I don’t think he believes Impressionism ever happened.”
Quentin had never met anybody so staggeringly and unapologetically affected. It was hard to know how to respond. He summoned up all the wisdom he’d accumulated during his entire life in Brooklyn.
“Merits are for pussies,” he said.
Eliot looked at him appraisingly.
“Very true. But they’re the only cigarette I can stand. Disgusting habit. Come on, smoke one with me.”
Quentin accepted the cigarette. He was in unfamiliar territory here. He’d handled cigarettes before—they were common props in close-up magic—but he’d never actually put one in his mouth. He made the cigarette vanish—a basic thumb palm—then snapped his fingers to bring it back.
“I said smoke it, not fondle it,” Eliot said curtly.
He muttered something under his breath, then snapped his own fingers. A lighter-size flame sprang into being over the tip of his index finger. Quentin leaned in and inhaled.
It felt like his lungs had been crumpled up and then incinerated. He coughed for five solid minutes without stopping. Eliot laughed so hard he had to sit down. Quentin’s face was slick with tears. He forced himself to take another drag and threw up into a hedge.
They spent the rest of that afternoon together. Maybe he felt guilty for giving Quentin the cigarette, or maybe Eliot had decided that the tedium of solitude was ever so slightly greater than the tedium of Quentin’s company. Maybe he just needed a straight man. He led Quentin around the campus and lectured him on the underground lore of life at Brakebills.
“The keen-eyed incoming freshman will have noticed the weather, which is uncommonly clement for November. That’s because it’s still summer here. There are some very old spells on the Brakebills grounds to keep people from spotting it from the river or walking in by accident, that kind of thing. Fine old enchantments. Classic work of their kind. But they’re getting eccentric in their old age, and somewhere in the 1950s time started spinning off its axis here. Gets worse every year. Nothing to worry about, in the larger picture, but we’re a little behind the mainstream. Two months twenty-eight days, give or take a few hours.”
Quentin didn’t know whether to act as awestruck as he felt or try to produce an imitation of cool worldly ennui. He changed the subject and asked about the curriculum.
“You won’t have any choice about your schedule your first year. Henry”—Eliot only ever referred to Dean Fogg by his first name—“makes everybody do the same thing. Are you smart?”
There was no non-embarrassing answer to this.
“I guess.”
“Don’t worry about it, everybody here is. If they even brought you in for the Exam you were the smartest person in your school, teachers
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