I know a lot of those sleight-of-hand tricks, they're really fun once you get them down.

( Quentin's pretty bad at deceiving, until it comes to magic, tricks, games, cards, the sort of things where deceit is for fun. He's an expert fake magician, but he still hasn't reached mastery of the real magic. And now he never will, because he's here without it. )

Was all this really hard to deal with, in the start, if it's not your usual thing?

( It's been confusing for him, but he is much closer to this in his reality than not. )