Professor Sunderland walked down the length of the room closing the dusty wooden shutters with a clatter until it was dark. Then she cleared the clutter off a gray slate tabletop and boosted herself up onto it. She yanked her skirt down over her knees and motioned for him to sit facing her on the table opposite.

“Go like this,” she said, holding up her hands as if she were about to conduct an invisible orchestra. Unladylike half-moons of sweat bloomed under the arms of her blouse. He went like this.

She led him through a series of gestures familiar to him from Popper, though he’d never seen them put together in quite that combination. She whispered some words he didn’t catch.

“Now go like this.” She flung her hands up over her head.

When she did it, nothing happened. But when Quentin mirrored her, streams of fat white sparks streamed out of his fingertips. It was amazing—it was like they’d been inside him all his life, just waiting for him to wave his hands the right way. They splashed happily out across the ceiling in the dimness and came floating festively down around him, bouncing a few times when they hit the floor and then finally winking out. His hands felt warm and tingly.

The relief was almost unbearable. He did it again and a few more sparks flew out, weaker this time. He watched them trail down around him. The third time he got only one.

“What does it mean?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” Professor Sunderland said. “I’ll put you down as Undetermined. We’ll try again next year.”

“Next year?” Quentin watched with a rising sense of disappointment as she jumped down off the table and started reopening shutters, window by window. He winced at the sunlight flooding in. “What do you mean? What am I going to do till then?”

“Wait,” she said. “It happens. People put too much importance on these things. Be a darling and send in the next student, would you? We’re already running late, and it’s only noon.”

The summer dragged by in slow motion. It was really the fall, of course, in the world outside Brakebills, and the Brooklyn Quentin came home to for summer vacation was chilly and gray, the streets plastered with wet brown leaves and mashed ginkgo balls that smelled like vomit.