After finding out that Julia still has a literal spark of magic in season two’s finale, she and Quentin put their heads together in an attempt to uncover how they can bring magic back. When their classmate and former Fillory cook, Josh, overhears their discussion, they are offered a way to help them reach a powerful god the way cultures of old once did: a celebration. After doing some finagling to get in, the two find themselves in the midst of a wild rager--hosted by a party god--where Julia ends up revealing to Josh she still has magic and Quentin reveals that he killed Ember. Surprisingly, neither of those things lands them in hot water, freeing up time to hound the new god for information about his parents. Like most gods, he’s uninterested in their human drama, but the top-hated party-goer eventually reveals that, like almost everything in life, there’s a backdoor to magic.

As that Brakebills’ trio uncovers answers, Kady sneaks a few moments with Penny who is on an assignment. Knowing that his time with her is killing him, she forces him to go back to The Library where both time and the sickness that is killing him is stopped. After their brief romantic encounter, Kady is approached by Harriet, who argues that all of magic is not gone and that Kady should seek about the people who saw this coming and planned for it. Meanwhile, in Fillory, Eliot and Margo attempt to run a kingdom on the verge of starvation while also being haunted (or hunted) under their own castle roof by the Faerie Queen. The High King and Queen attempt several plots that might get them out of their faire tangle, but each and every time they are discovered, until Eliot figures out who--or what--is snitching.