Eliot, Janet, and Josh leave Brakebills while Quentin and Alice remain there. Four Third Years are assigned to the Physical Kids, but Quentin and Alice feel little connection to them. The departure of the others causes Quentin to feel sad. Though friendships had frayed a little at the end, for Quentin and Alice, it feels like the “end of an era” (199).

They decide they need to socialize more with other Fifth-Year students, and use Alice’s position as a “Prefect” (197) to reconnect with Gretchen, who is also a Prefect. At Brakebills, “Prefectships were given to the four students in the Fourth and Fifth Years with the highest GPA […] Their actual responsibilities were petty things like regulating access to the phone,” and they have “access to the Prefects’ Common Room” (197). Penny is also a Prefect, but because his Discipline is “arcane and outlandish” (198), he studies independently with Professor Van der Weghe. When he’s not attending classes, which is often, Penny keeps mostly to himself.

Quentin also tells Dean Fogg about Julia and about how her life has been ruined because of Fogg’s failed memory wipe.