Quentin recognized the thin man: he was the magical bric-a-brac dealer who turned up once or twice a year at Brakebills in his woodie station wagon, loaded down with a bizarre collection of charms and fetishes and relics. Nobody particularly liked him, but the students tolerated him, if only because he was unintentionally funny and annoyed the faculty, who were always on the verge of banning him permanently. He wasn’t a magician himself and couldn’t tell the difference between what was genuine and what was junk, but he took himself and his stock extremely seriously. His name was Lovelady.

He’d turned up again shortly after the incident with the Beast, and some of the younger kids bought charms to protect themselves in the event of another attack. But Josh knew better than that. Or Quentin would have thought so.

“Hey,” Quentin said, but as he started toward them he knocked his forehead against a hard invisible barrier.

Whatever it was was cool and squeaked like clean glass. It was soundproof, too: he could see their lips moving, but the alcove was silent.

He caught Josh’s eye. There was a quick exchange with Lovelady, who peered over his shoulder at Quentin. Lovelady didn’t look happy, but he picked up what looked like an ordinary glass tumbler that had been standing upside-down on the table and flipped it over. The barrier vanished.

“Hey,” Josh said sullenly. “What’s up?” His eyes were red, and the bags under them were dark and bruised-looking. He didn’t look especially happy to see Quentin either.

“What’s going on?” Quentin ignored Lovelady. “You know we have a match this morning, right?”

“Oh, man. Right. Game time.” Josh smeared his right eye blearily with the heel of his hand. Lovelady watched them both, carefully husbanding his dignity. “How long do we have?”

“About negative half an hour.”

“Oh, man,” he said again. Josh put his forehead down on the table, then looked up suddenly at Lovelady. “Got anything for time travel? Time-turner or something?”

“Not at this time,” Lovelady intoned gravely. “But I will make inquiries.”

“Awesome.” Josh stood up. He saluted smartly. “Send me an owl.”

“Come on, they’re waiting for us. Fogg is freezing his ass off.”

“Good for him. Too much ass on that man anyway.”

Quentin got Josh out of the library and heading toward the rear of the House, though he was moving slowly and with a worrying tendency to lurch into door frames and occasionally into Quentin.

He did an abrupt about-face.

“Hang on,” he said. “Gotta get my quidditch costume. I mean uniform. I mean welters.”

“We don’t have uniforms.”

“I know that,” Josh snapped. “I’m drunk, I’m not delusional. I still need my winter coat.”

“Jesus, man. It’s not even ten o’clock.” Quentin couldn’t believe he’d been worried. This was the big mystery?

“Experiment. Thought it might relax me for the big game.”