They walked back down the path in the direction of the Sea, not talking, just blowing on their hands and rubbing them together. It was getting even colder as the sun went down. The trees were already black against the sky. They would have to hurry to change for dinner. A powerful feeling of late-afternoon futility was descending on Quentin. A gang of wild turkeys patrolled the edge of the forest, upright and alert, looking oddly saurian and menacing, like a lost squadron of velociraptors.
As they crossed the lawn Quentin found himself being quizzed about Eliot.
“So are you really friends with that guy?” Surendra said.
“Yeah, how do you even know him?”
“I don’t really. He mostly hangs out with his own crowd.” Quentin was secretly proud to be connected with Eliot, even if in reality they hardly spoke to each other anymore.
“Yeah, I know,” Surendra said. “The Physical Kids. What a bunch of losers.”
“What do you mean, Physical Kids?”
“You know, that whole clique. Janet Way and the fat one, Josh Hoberman—those guys. They all do physical magic for their Disciplines.”
In the Maze their white breath streamed up against the darkness of the box hedges. Surendra explained that starting with the Third Year students chose a specific magical topic to specialize in, or, more exactly, had it chosen for them by the faculty. Then students were divided into groups based on their specialties.
“It doesn’t matter that much, except that Disciplines map loosely to social groups—people tend to hang out mostly with their own kind. Physical’s supposed to be the rarest. They’re a little snobby about it, I guess. And anyway Eliot, you know about him.”
Gretchen raised her eyebrows and leered. His nose was red from having been out in the cold. By now they had reached the terrace, and the pink sunset was smeared anamorphically all over the wavy glass in the French doors.
“No, I don’t think I do know,” Quentin said stiffly. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“You don’t know?”
“Oh my God!” In ecstasy Gretchen put her hand on Surendra’s arm. “I bet he’s one of Eliot’s—!”
At that moment the French doors opened and Penny came striding quickly toward them, stiff-legged, his shirt untucked, no jacket on. His pale round face came looming up out of the dusk. His expression was blank and fixed, his walk hyperanimated by a crazy energy. As he got closer he took an extra little skip step, cocked his arm back, and punched Quentin in the face.
Fighting was almost unheard of at Brakebills. Students gossiped and politicked and sabotaged one another’s P.A. experiments, but actual physical violence was vanishingly rare. Back in Brooklyn Quentin had seen fights, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who got mixed up in them. He wasn’t a bully, and his height made it inconvenient for bullies to pick on him. He didn’t have any siblings. He hadn’t been seriously punched since elementary school.
There was a freeze-frame moment of Penny’s fist, close-up and huge, like a comet passing dangerously close to the Earth, and then a flashbulb went off in Quentin’s right eye. It was a straight shot, and he half spun away and brought up his hand to touch the spot in the universal gesture of I’ve-just-been-punched-in-the-face. He was still trying to get his mind around what had just happened when Penny hit him again. This time Quentin ducked enough that he caught it on his ear.
“Ow!” Quentin yelled, scrambling backward. “What the hell?”
Dozens of windows looked out on the terrace from the House, and Quentin had a blurred impression of rows of fascinated faces pressed up against them.
Surendra and Gretchen stared at Quentin in white-faced horror, their mouths open, as if what was happening were his fault. Penny obviously had some theatrical notions about how a fight should go, because he was bouncing on his feet and doing little fake jabs and weaving his head around like boxers in movies.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Quentin shouted at him, more shocked than hurt.
Penny’s jaw was clenched, and his breath hissed in and out between his teeth. There was saliva on his chin, and his eyes looked weird—the phrase “fixed and dilated” flashed through Quentin’s mind. Penny aimed a big roundhouse punch at Quentin’s head, and Quentin flinched away violently, ducking and covering his head with his arms. He recovered enough to grab Penny around the waist while he was still off balance.
They staggered back and forth like a pair of drunken waltzers, leaning on each other for support, then crashed into a shrubbery at the edge of the terrace. It dropped its payload of snow on them. Quentin was a couple of inches taller than Penny, and his arms were longer, but Penny was made of more solid stuff and could throw him around. A low stone bench cut them off at the knees, and they both fell over, Penny on top.
