Elide Lochan and Lorcan spend two quiet days traveling through the eastern edge of Oakwald toward the plains. Elide deliberately withholds questions about Lorcan’s motives, his mistress, his interest in Morath, and his reaction to Aelin’s name, because Elide knows Lorcan is hiding things and may abandon Elide once Lorcan has what he wants. When Elide reaches the Acanthus River and sees the open meadows beyond, the sight of sunlight and freedom overwhelms Elide after years of confinement and fear.

At the bridge crossing, Elide realizes Adarlanian soldiers are inspecting travelers and that a limp like Elide’s might expose Elide. Lorcan uses magic to brace Elide’s injured leg, and Elide reshapes both their appearances for a disguise: Lorcan must look less threatening, while Elide presents herself as a married woman. In a crowded tavern near the bridge, Elide notices a struggling carnival troupe and decides to bluff a place among them, using charm, a false marriage to Lorcan, and a claim that they once worked for Baba Yellowlegs’s Carnival of Mirrors.

Elide’s gamble succeeds after Elide offers to help pay the bridge toll and invents useful roles for herself and Lorcan: fortune-teller and sword-thrower. Molly, the troupe’s leader, accepts them only temporarily and warns that if they prove useless, they will be cast out without repayment. Lorcan, privately irritated by being cast as Elide’s husband, nevertheless recognizes Elide’s intelligence and understands that Elide uses others’ assumptions about her body and sweetness to hide her cunning.

From Lorcan’s perspective, the group boards the carnival wagons and joins the line for inspection. Nik, one of the troupe’s men, questions their story and discusses rumors: Rifthold has been sacked by witches and flying beasts, Dorian’s fate is unknown, and people fear both Morath and whatever Aelin Galathynius might do. Elide reacts strongly to Aelin’s name and insists that Aelin will win, revealing Elide’s faith in Aelin and in a better world.

At the toll, soldiers order everyone out, leer at Elide, search the wagons, and take what they want, while the raven-haired woman warns Elide not to provoke them and warns Lorcan not to fight. Lorcan restrains himself, Molly pays the toll with Lorcan’s money, and the troupe crosses the Acanthus without the guards discovering Elide’s identity or questioning her limp. As Elide looks back in wonder and anger, Lorcan reflects cynically that Elide’s hope for a better world is foolish and that war offers Elide only a shallow grave.