On Manhattan’s gilded Upper East Side, a young gay painter is torn between an obsession with his infamous best friend and a promising new romance with an older foreign pianist.

A recent college graduate sets out to win back the girl of his dreams.

Brakebills University is a secret institution specializing in magic. There, amidst an unorthodox education of spellcasting, a group of twenty-something friends soon discover that a magical fantasy world they read about as children is all too real— and poses grave danger to humanity.