By the time she joins up with Quentin again, she has begun a transformation that will only be completed when her oldest friend makes the ultimate sacrifice for her. Her search for magical enlightenment takes her through many dark places, in the outside world as well as in her own heart. While the previous book focused on how Quentin learned the art in the (more or less) safe environment of Brakebills, alternating chapters of this book show us how Julia made do in the harsh, painful world of hedge magic. Meanwhile, the book also fills us in on Julia’s background in magic. Quentin started it all by getting the attention of the powers behind the magic now it is his quest, more than anyone else’s, to seek the seven keys that will keep magic and Fillory alive. Now it seems the magic is being taken away from all the worlds, and in Fillory’s case that means the end of the world. What he finds is a portal back to the Real World, from which he and his troubled friend Julia make a narrow escape back into Fillory. Convinced that he needs a quest, or some kind of adventure, more than the easy life of a pampered royal, he sails out to the edge of the known world just to see what is there. In the one that gives the book its title, Quentin grows restless on the throne of Fillory, which he shares with three other Brakebills alumni.

The chapters of The Magician King alternate between two storylines. That is all background to this book, in which Quentin and friends delve further into a world proving that magic and adventure are no substitute for a strong course of antidepressants. When Quentin gets into an exclusive school called Brakebills (think: a college-level Hogwarts in upstate New York), he learns the dangerous art magic, then joins several of his buddies on a journey that takes them to the very real world of Fillory. The Magicians introduced us to Quentin Coldwater, a young American whose heart belongs in a Narnia-like world of juvenile fantasy novels called Fillory.

The magician king