The keen-eyed incoming freshman will have noticed the weather, which is uncommonly clement for November. That's because it's still summer here. There are some very old spells on the Brakebills grounds to keep people from spotting it from the river or walking in by accident, that kind of thing. Fine old enchantments. Classic work of their kind. But they're getting eccentric in their old age, and somewhere in the nineteen fifties time started spinning off its axis here. Gets worse every year. Nothing to worry about, in the larger picture, but we're a little behind the mainstream. Two months twenty-eight days, give or take a few hours.
—Eliot, The Magicians
