On the Spirit’s shore, the Spirit of the Wood cuts into her own body and draws out the long-lost Twin Alders Card. Ravyn tries to take it, but the Spirit’s claws close around Ravyn’s hand, making clear that the final barter is not ownership but use. Ravyn taps the Card, and the Nightmare warns Ravyn to choose his words carefully.

The Spirit reveals that Ravyn means to die at Solstice in Elspeth’s place when the Deck is united. Ravyn confirms this, declaring that he will pay the blood price to heal Blunder, free Elspeth, and save his siblings. The Spirit pulls Ravyn into a timeless vision and first offers to save everyone Ravyn loves if Ravyn leaves the Twin Alders with the Spirit. When Ravyn refuses because the Spirit will not explain Elm’s threatened fate, the Spirit offers Ravyn the throne of Blunder in Quercus Rowan’s place. Ravyn rejects that too and demands the true price.

The Spirit sets a riddle as the barter: Ravyn must tell the Spirit Ravyn’s true name. Ravyn asks for two clues. The Spirit gives one directly, saying the Deck must unite at the King’s namesake tree, and that the tree is not a rowan. For the second clue, the Spirit shows Ravyn a vision from five hundred years earlier, at Solstice, in the Shepherd King’s castle.

In the vision, Ravyn sees Brutus Rowan betray the Shepherd King during a celebration. Brutus, using Providence Cards and accompanied by controlled men, stabs the Shepherd King, searches for the Shepherd King’s daughter, and demands the Twin Alders Card. Brutus says the Shepherd King’s magic caused Ayris’s death and made the Shepherd King unfit to rule. Brutus kills the Shepherd King and orders the Shepherd King’s children slain, while the dying Shepherd King vows to endure beyond death as the Nightmare.

Outside the burning castle, Ravyn sees Bennett, one of the Shepherd King’s sons, confront Brutus. Brutus tries to command Bennett with the Scythe, but Bennett resists, takes the Scythe Card, and tears it in half before escaping with a Mirror Card. The vision then follows Bennett through hunger, highway robbery, pursuit by Destriers, marriage, and old age, until Bennett returns to the yew-ringed chamber, bleeds into the stone, and casts his Nightmare and Mirror Cards into the chasm for his father.

Back in the meadow, Ravyn understands the clues. The Shepherd King’s true namesake tree was the yew, not the rowan; Bennett’s resistance to the Scythe mirrors Ravyn’s own; and the Shepherd King and Bennett’s features connect them to Ravyn. Ravyn realizes his old name is Taxus and answers the Spirit with certainty: Ravyn’s true name is Taxus.