Six Short Stories About Magic: Season 3, Episode 8

WARNING: If you don't want to know what happened in this episode, don't read this photo recap! 

Continuing their quest to get the key that Benedict took with him to the Underworld, Penny goes through the book depository and ends up at the Underworld Library. He finds that things aren't going great there either. After giving them a (fake) update on what's happening on Game of Thrones, Penny meets up with...

Benedict! It turns out though, that Benedict hid the key in the library. So, he rushes off to find his old friend…

Stephanie! Remember her? Penny's old supervisor at the Magic Library. She leads Penny to Cassandra, who looks A LOT like Alice. And may be Alice? It's hard to know. Anyway, she's cursed to write everyone's stories and that's how Stephanie knew she had to help Penny. She hands him a paper where he reads about...

Poppy, who knows that creating the magic bridge that can get them into the library will take magic that Alice can do. When Alice refuses, so does Victoria. In the process though, the gang learns that Harriet (Marlee Matlin) is actually after a giant magic battery called the Alexandra cell.

Finally, Poppy sneaks into Alice's room and steals Alice's notes about how to make a bridge. So Victoria is back in on the plan and the gang is led into the void. Victoria has to stay in this place the whole time, but everyone else ends up in the library to find the bookworm.

When Poppy and Quentin realize that Penny failed in getting them back the key, they decide to regroup and try again some other time, but on their way out, they bump into Alice. What's she doing there? Poppy, sort of scorned, leaves Quentin, and crosses the bridge back to the real world by herself.

It turns out that Alice actually met with Harriet and Kady. Harriet is angry that the library want allow free information for all. Kady offers Alice a piece of the big battery Harriet's after. She turns them down, but because she's Alice, of COURSE she goes off to figure out how to get there herself.

When Alice gets to the library, she meets The Head Librarian. Alice offers her Niffin notes in exchange for access to the library. See, Alice misses knowing ALL of the magic like she did when she was a Niffin and is working on her grand unification theory of magic. The Librarian is about to offer her a deal when she is called away.

Meanwhile, Irene McAllister comes to ask Julia to return her favor (magically heal a rash she's gotten from using that weird magic cocaine). Weirdly, Irene has a fairy with her. Julia can't see the fairy, but secretly... Fen can. (Fen's been hiding out on Earth since learning that Fray wasn't her real daughter.) Why does Irene have a fairy?

Even though fairies are responsible for all the pain that Fen has been put through, she agrees to talk to the fairy and finds out that something is definitely up. Turns out the McAllisters are enslaving fairies, and SEVERING THEIR LIMBS to grind down into that magic cocaine.

And then…a revalation! It turns out that the Head Librarian is Harriet's mom! Since Harriet's been out living in the real world, she's aged faster than her mother, but it's always been a fraught relationship. Harriet went to Brakebills, she was always looking for Fillory, and now...

…As Harriet and Kady search the archive room for the magic battery, they find a suitcase full of that magic cocaine made of fairy parts. Harriet confronts her mother.

Meanwhile, Penny realizes that Benedict had the key all along!

He sends it to Quentin and Kady via the Bookworm. They rush back through that mirror! But they have to leave Harriet behind, not knowing where she is. They figure she'll be okay. But…

It turns out Stephanie his friend has betrayed him. Even though the key has made it up to the world, Penny is led away. But what happened to Harriet?

It turns out that Harriet was the last one through the bridge. And just as she made it through, one of the other librarians smashed the mirror. Victoria and Harriet are trapped in limbo. Maybe forever!