- "Have you ever been in this room before? It was designed at the turn of the century for a sect of incredibly delicate experiments. Mechanisms within the walls prevent any spell casting. It is, in fact, a clean room."
- ―Henry Fogg to Mike McCormick
The Clean Room is an underground Brakebills University facility created to prevent Magicians from casting spells. It was used as a temporary prison for Mike McCormick, and later Julia Wicker.
History[]
Interrogation of Mike McCormick[]
Mike McCormick is imprisoned in the Clean Room.
In 2016, after Mike McCormick attacked Penny Adiyodi with the Virgo Blade, he was caught attempting to open a portal near the Welters Stadium at Brakebills University and brought to the Clean Room, where Henry Fogg explained that the mechanisms within the room's walls prevented him from using magic to escape. When Fogg asked for the location of the blade, McCormick explained that he was blacked out for the event and had no idea what was happening. Eliot Waugh was later allowed to speak with McCormick by Pearl Sunderland, and discovered that he'd been blacked out since before their relationship began.
The Beast kills Jane Chatwin.
When Jane Chatwin arrived at the school to speak with McCormick, who she recognized as being under possession of The Beast, she told the Beast that McCormick was being prepared for transportation to a Salvadorian prison in the morning. The Beast explained that he could leave the room at any time, but he'd had been simply been waiting. When Chatwin asked what he'd been waiting for, he revealed that he was waiting for her to arrive before breaking free of his shackles and strangling her before using his magic to make her head explode.
Eliot Waugh uses his magic to stop Mike.
After killing Jane, the Beast attempted to escape, but Dean Fogg was waiting outside the room and attempted to bind him with a spell. However, the Beast used a spell that caused Fogg to fall unconscious, and as he prepared to kill Fogg, Eliot Waugh arrived and used his magic to snap McCormick's neck, killing him instantly.[1]
Imprisonment of Julia Wicker[]
Kady Orloff-Diaz locks Julia Wicker in the Clean Room.
A Shadeless Julia Wicker was locked in the Clean Room after she used her oldest friend Quentin Coldwater as bait for Reynard the Fox. Julia had made a deal with the Niffin Alice who was trapped in Quentin's Cacodemon Trap tattoo to force Quentin into releasing her to defend himself and for Niffin Alice to kill Reynard.[2] The plan was unsuccessful, as Reynard had learned a Paralysis Spell that The Beast had inflicted on him in a previous assassination attempt on the god, also orchestrated by Wicker.[3]