“I don’t have any.” He could speak for himself.

“So did he want to take the test? Because otherwise he can’t stay here.”

“I understand,” Julia said.

The really incredible thing was that she wasn’t even mouthing off to this guy. She was being civil! She, a queen of Fillory, respected the fucked-up protocol of this place.

“Quentin, he wants you to take a test,” she said. “To show you do magic.”

“I want lots of things too. Do I have to do it?”

“Yes, you have to fucking do it,” she said evenly. “So do it. It is just the first level, everybody who comes here does it their first time. You just make a flash. You probably have a fancy name for it.”

“Show me.”

Julia ran through three well-rehearsed hand positions, lickety-split, snapped her fingers, and said:

“ışık!”

The snap produced a little pop of light, like a flashbulb.

“Okay?”

“Hang on,” Quentin said. “Those hand positions weren’t quite generic. Can you—?”

“Come on, people,” Alex said, not so chipper now. “Are we doing this?”

Quentin saw now that Alex had eight stars, four on the back of each hand. That must make him king of the flophouse.

“Come on, Quentin.”

“Okay, okay. Show me again.”

She did the spell again. Quentin came at it, trying to crook his fingers the way she did. Brakebills taught you all straight lines, your hands approximating platonic geometry, but these positions were loose and organic. Nothing lined up. And it had been two years since he’d worked with real-world Circumstances. He tried it once, snap, and got nothing. Then nothing again.

This earned him a round of ironic applause. The locals were taking an interest in this transaction.

“I’m sorry, one more try and then you’re out,” Alex said. “You can come back in a month.” Julia began to show him again, but Alex put a hand over hers. “Just let him try.”

The bouncer, Potions Master, had come in from the front door and was watching with his arms folded. Quentin could hear other people saying “ışık!” Every time they did, a flashbulb would go off.

Screw this. He wasn’t going to pick up some corrupt hedge-witch spell in thirty seconds that would probably screw up his technique. He was classically trained, and a master sorcerer, and a king to boot. Let there be light.

“,” he said. “”

Let’s see who here’s got good Aramaic. He closed his eyes and clapped his hands loudly.

The light was white and blinding—a flashbulb at close range, right up in your face. For a second the whole room—shitty carpet, listing torchiere lamps, staring faces—was frozen, all the color driven out of it. Quentin had to blink his vision back to normal, and he’d had his eyes closed.

There was a beat of silence.