Bree wakes late on Saturday still physically worn from the hellfox attack, though William has healed her injuries. Tor sends a group text ordering the Pages to dinner and training that evening, and Bree walks across campus struck by the contrast between normal college life and the secret dangers now surrounding her. Nick texts that he must speak with Lord Davis about the previous night, and Bree realizes Nick does not know about her red mage flames, leaving Bree with a secret she is not ready to share.

Bree meets Patricia at the Arboretum and is surprised to find another young Black root practitioner, Mariah, present. Patricia explains that the meeting is not a normal therapy session and that Mariah may help them understand Bree’s experiences. Mariah reveals she is a Medium, immediately sensing that “Death knows” Bree, then invites Bree into conversation about Black Student Movement and campus community.

Patricia shifts the conversation to the danger Bree faces. Patricia says Bree appears to have a branch of root that lets Bree see root in raw form and warns that the Order has historically harmed outsiders with power. Mariah challenges Bree’s choice to remain close to the Order, and Bree, feeling the strain of hiding, tells Patricia and Mariah that Bree believes her mother’s death was not an accident. Bree explains that a Merlin erased Bree’s and her father’s memories at the hospital and that Bree joined the Order to uncover proof and punish whoever was responsible.

When Patricia asks what Bree can do, Bree admits everything: Bree can resist mesmer, smell castings, sense Sel’s gaze, see root, and produce red mage flames. Patricia concludes that if Bree is not borrowing these abilities from ancestors, the powers may have been bound to Bree somehow. To seek answers, Mariah proposes helping Bree contact Bree’s ancestors, though Mariah cautions that she cannot control who answers.

Bree agrees, hoping she might speak with her mother again. Mariah takes Bree’s hands and tries to follow Bree’s love for her mother back through Bree’s family line. Instead of a clear connection, Bree is overwhelmed by grief over generations of lost mothers and grandmothers; Mariah senses deep wells of life separated and tied off from one another. Mariah breaks contact and says something terrible happened in Bree’s family, and Bree, panicked and dizzy, runs away from Patricia and Mariah.