A Brooklyn-born teenager named Quentin Coldwater learns that magic and that the world from his
favorite fantasy novel, Fillory and Further, actually exists! Rather than enrolling at an
ordinary college with his friends, he chooses to study magic at Brakebills University for
Magical Pedagogy. In the meantime, his childhood friend Julia gets rejected from school and starts
looking for magic elsewhere. Quentin and his friends at Brakebills learn the theory
and practice of magic. Soon they find out that the magical world from their childhood novels is real,
endangers everyone, and that the world realm of Fillory, a place depicted in fiction is both very
real and completely different from the one that Christopher Plover, the author of the Fillory
and Further book series has built. Will chasing the adrenaline of magic stop them from improving
their abilities while they need them most? The story begins on a street in Brooklyn. Henry
Fogg, dean of the magic university, enters New York City through a door that opens to a forest
beyond this world. As he is sitting on a bench, a lady named Eliza joins him to inform him that "it"
is already happening while laying a huge dead moth on his lap. He claims that "they" are not
even at Brakebills yet but the lady demand he rushes their recruiting. Then, the woman hands
Fogg a pocket watch for emergencies. Meanwhile, Quentin Coldwater is awaiting release at the
Midtown Mental Health Clinic. He impresses Doctor London with a coin trick by making a coin vanish.
After reviewing his admission report, which indicated that he was clinically depressed,
Doctor London questioned why he believed that he was ready to leave. Quentin claims to be getting
better and reasons his condition to his inability to accept reality. Despite his confident attitude,
Doctor London believes he needs more therapy. According to Quentin, they cannot detain him as
he has never threatened to harm himself or another person. Shortly after, he leaves the facility.
Later at a graduation celebration party at Columbia University, Quentin watches a dance
by a girl wearing rainbow-colored shorts. Julia Wicker, who is on the other side of the room with
her boyfriend, James, and a group of friends, spots Quentin and invites him to hang out with
them. Instead of going to their side, Quentin shows his cup and vanishes into his magic and
illusionist-themed room and starts reading his favorite book, The World in the Walls, the first
book in the Fillory and Further series. Shortly after, Julia comes to the door. As she lies next
to him, He says he was rereading the books one more round until listing them on eBay. Then Julia
wonders about his whereabouts since she had called him on the weekend but didn't get any answer.
Quentin explains that he escaped to his father's house in New Jersey because he
was worried about his Yale interview with Yale. Julia says she wasn't judging and
sweetly kisses him on the cheek. At the same time, James enters and asks why his girlfriend
and his friend are in the bed before jumping on them. Soon, other people from the party join them
and the bed collapses immediately. Later, Julia and Quentin travel to a residential
district the following day for the Yale interview. The two knock on the door but receive no response,
so they go inside. Shockingly they discover the interviewer deceased and dial 911. Before he
and Julia left, one of the paramedics, the same lady named Eliza, gives Quentin a box
left by the deceased. He opens the box to find a draft for the sixth Fillory and Further novel,
whose existence had only been claimed. Frustrated, Julia comments that Quentin was meant to give
up on Fillory because it's only for kids. After their disagreement, Julia goes to see
James while Quentin continues to read the text for a little more. During his stroll down the street,
one of the papers gets caught in the wind. Quentin chases after a newspaper as it leads
him to a shady place. At the same time, Julia arrives at a building. She uses the elevator
to go to the third floor, but it instead goes down. Then, Julia's elevator opens its doors to
an illuminated corridor whereas Quentin still chases the floating page through a dark narrow
street. When he breaks away out of the bushes, a school building appears in the distance.
As Quentin navigates his way through to the school's front door, Julia follows a
sign pointing her to an exam down the corridor. As Quentin approaches the entrance, Eliot Waugh waits
for Quentin at the school's stairs. Before guiding him to the test, Elliot informs Quentin that he is
running late. Then he explains that they are in Upstate New York and that Quentin has been
given the opportunity to take the preliminary exam for admission to the graduate program.
With a surprised look on his face, Quentin asks Elliot if he was hallucinating. As they enter
the classroom, Henry Fogg loses no time to declare the two are late. After everyone has found a seat,
Fogg reveals himself as the Dean of Brakebills. He instructs that any inquiries be postponed because,
at this time, their primary priority should be finishing the exam. The exam begins with
the booklets displaying questions that are always changing, but Quentin quickly gets the
concept and starts to answer. Then he turns in his booklet after the test. Soon later,
he is given a card with instructions about where to go next. When he sees Julia waiting in line,
the two hug and briefly talk about how they came before Fogg interrupts them.
When Julia visits Professor Van der Weghe, he informs her that the purpose of the exam
was to demonstrate any potential magical powers she could possess. Then, Van der
Weghe firmly states that while she might have experienced the magic at one time in her life,
that's not valid now. After Van der Weghe explains that he is going to remove Julia's memories,
she expresses that she can't go back now that she entered the world of Brakebills and magic.
As the professor gets ready to erase her memories, Julia cuts her arm with the ring. In a different
room, Dean Fogg requests that Quentin do some magic with a deck of cards while he
is the school board watches. So, he performs a card trick, which makes some in the audience
laugh. When Fogg comes over and asks whether he'd rather go back to the life he hated, Quentin gets
frustrated and makes another try at a card trick. Then he surprises even himself upon realizing he
is in charge of the deck of cards as it explodes all around him and swirls in the air. Suddenly,
he faints from exhaustion after placing cards in the shape of a castle on a desk nearby.
In his dream, Quentin sees a big tree with a clock. When he gets close to it,
he runs encounters Jane Chatwin from the Fillory and Further novels, who warns him that mastering
time magic is difficult. She emphasizes the fact that time itself cannot stop The
Beast from arriving. After being strangely swallowed by a moth cloud at Brakebills,
Quentin awakens in a dorm room. He is relieved to see the school logo on the deck of cards
on the nightstand next to him and that the adventure wasn't just a dream. At the same time,
Julia wakes up in New York City with James at their apartment, she feels perplexed whether
it was real or a dream until she finds a scar on her arm. Instantly, she realizes
what happened to her was real and starts looking for terms related to Brakebills on the internet.
Later, Dean Fogg welcomes Quentin to his office at the clock tower and continues to elaborate
on the existence of real magic. Then Quentin wonders how they were able to locate him. The
dean further explains that they use enchanted globes for eligible candidates but he adds that
Julia didn't make it as she failed to pass the test. After breaking the news of Julia,
the dean asks Quentin about his medication, which makes him uncomfortable. To ease his mind,
dean Fogg assures Quentin that Brakebills is a place to leave all the worrisome things behind.
After going back to his room, Quentin comes across Penny, the new roommate he
knew earlier from the preliminary exam. When Quentin discovers that his paper is gone,
he suspects Penny of stealing it, which he denies. Then, Eliot and Margo Hanson showed
up at their door to Quentin a tour of the school. Later on in Practical Applications, the first-year
students attend an introduction to casting spells. Alice Quinn, a different student, is asked to
cast a spell at the professor's request. Kady Orloff-Diaz makes fun of Alice's performance,
but Penny jokingly asserts that she is a skilled magician at work. So, Alice initiates a series of
subtle movements before quickly returning to her seat. Following the class, Penny reads Kady's mind
when they share a mutual admiration. Then they closely enjoy each other's company in Kady's dorm.
After on the same day, Margo, Quentin, and Eliot are seated when Alice passes by. Hanson
discusses Alice's edge over everyone due to her magical familial background. Then Hanson
sarcastically offers Alice to join their group, but she immediately turns around and leaves
instead. After apologizing for his companions' actions and praising Quinn's magical talent,
Quentin runs into Alice that evening in the cafe. Consequently, Alice clarifies that
despite her image, she has no significant edge attributable to her family. She explains that
she learned magic by herself when Quentin asks for help in not getting kicked out of school.
A couple of days pass, and James calls Quentin and reveals Julia isn't in the right mind for some
period adding that she is doing the bare minimum to survive. James follows up by reminding Quentin
about Julia's birthday. After some time, Quentin shows up with his group at the party, but Eliot
and Margo soon leave for the bar. At the bar, a guy wishes Julia happy birthday, but she ignores
him as her mind is too preoccupied. Then she chats with Quentin outdoors after spotting him,
and she shows him the scar on her arm. Quentin thinks the school was correct in their judgment,
despite Julia revealing her ability to cast a spell for him to see. So, he advises her to pick
another career instead, saying she is capable to accomplish whatever else she puts in mind.
Julia leaves her talk with Quentin and enters the bar's bathroom. When her shirt's buttons begin to
drop, she is abruptly pulled to other side of the room and bound to the radiator. Julia is perplexed
as she sees the man who had wished Julia a happy birthday from the bar, open the door to meet with
her. As Julia abruptly frees herself from the radiator and conjures fire jets from her fingers,
the man who is crouching next to her asks how it feels to be defenseless against him. He
puts out her flames after being impressed. In response, Julia accuses him of assault;
however, he claims that was not his plan and that his organization only needed to check if
she is a magician. Curious, Julia wants to know what specifically his organization is. Later,
Quentin is engaged in a study session in the Brakebills Library. Out of nowhere he unexpectedly
hears banging on a door. He opens it and enters Fillory. There, Jane Chatwin reveals that
Fillory selects when it wants people to visit, rather than the people choosing to go there,
and that it wanted Quentin to be there. She shoves his palm into a sign he sees on a stone. At his
desk in the library, he then awakens. When he looks at his palm in shock, he notices it left
a mark. He picks up the mark from his memory as it is the sigil he previously saw in Alice's book.
Then he finds Alice to ask her about the sign. Before he shows her the emblem in his palm,
she dismisses him. After seeing the mark on his palm her expression changes and she wants him to
meet her later. According to what she claims the symbol means: "Contact the other side." She has
to perform a conjuring, but before performing, she specifically wants a book that the Dean owns and
that was taken off the library shelves years ago. Quentin reluctantly reveals he's afraid to take
any risks, fearing getting expelled from school. In return for his contribution, she offers to
provide tutoring. But she warns him. Because he's involved in "this," he must be present for real.
While Kady and Penny attempt to study in Penny's dorm room, Penny becomes too
distracted to continue. He stops claiming that he has to investigate the voices he is hearing
and Kady follows him. After Quentin and Alice first meet up in the classroom, Alice is reading
summoning-related resources when Quentin realizes the sign on his palm has vanished.
Because no one would tell her how he passed away, Alice claims they are attempting to get
in touch with her brother Charlie who passed away at Brakebills five years ago. She adds
that she is not at Brakebills because she likes magic but instead for her brother. The moment
Alice says they are missing certain essentials for the ceremony; Penny and Kady enter the room
suddenly. When the magic is performed, they turn to the mirror in the room's corner hoping to see
something, but nothing appears. They tidy up after that and return in disappointment.
After they leave, a suspicious fog appears on the mirror, drawing a creepy smiley face.
While all is happening, Julia and Pete go to a shady part of New York. He approaches a closed
door, rolls up his sleeve, and opens the door to reveal the star tattoo to the person watching from
behind. When the door opens, Julia discovers a brand-new route to magic. Later in the Brakebills
classroom, Professor Van der Weghe gives a lecture on alloys. The clock stops at exactly
noon. Dean Fogg rushes into the classroom when he notices his watch doing the same thing outside.
Inside, everyone is magically frozen, but they can still observe what is going on. Suddenly,
a horror movie emerges from the mirror. A creature with a moth cloud on his head,
encircled by moths appears. Then, he slowly circles the classroom,
obscurely killing the professor. In the middle of the silent chaos, Dean Fogg enters the
classroom to fight him but the man defeats Foggs and gouges his eyes out mercilessly.
In the end, he approaches frozen Quentin to say, "Quentin Coldwater...There you are."