After arguing with Alice, Bree walks back toward Old East furious and isolated. Watching other students move confidently across campus makes Bree feel alone, but a bitter part of Bree finds the loneliness satisfying because it frees Bree from memories of who Bree used to be.

Nick Davis texts Bree to arrange their assigned mentor meeting, but Bree dismisses him as a babysitter. Bree then answers a call from Bree's father, who has not yet heard from Dean McKinnon. Bree lies that the first night was quiet, and Bree's father gently presses Bree about finding community, eating, and managing grief.

The conversation exposes Bree's fragile emotional state. Bree's father reminds Bree that if Bree shuts down, Bree must come home, and his grief breaks through Bree's defenses. After they hang up, Bree is overwhelmed by a flashback to the hospital on the night Bree's mother died.

The memory begins as Bree remembers it: disinfectant, a police officer explaining a hit-and-run, and the moment the family learned Bree's mother was dead. Then a hidden image breaks through: the officer's silver badge, shimmering body, blue eyes, muttered words, and a cold wind sweeping through Bree's mind. Bree realizes this memory had been altered, just like Selwyn altered Bree's memory at the Quarry.

In English class, Bree barely functions while questions spiral: whether the officer was a Merlin or Kingsmage, why Bree can resist or recover erased memories, what else was taken, and whether an isel was connected to Bree's mother's death. Bree's father texts after hearing from the Chens and the dean, angry that Bree hid the incident, but Bree postpones the conversation.

As the day continues, campus no longer feels merely intimidating; it feels claustrophobic and full of hidden watchers. Bree ignores another text from Nick and finishes the chapter with a new purpose: someone used magic to conceal the truth about Bree's mother's death, and Bree intends to uncover it.