At the third feast at Stone, Elm grows tired of courtly performance while King Rowan drinks on the dais and the guests dress as Providence Cards. Elm wears black despite that color being reserved for the Black Horse, and he scans the hall for Ione instead of attending to his dance partner.

Elm finds Ione among court women, dressed in a burgundy Nightmare costume with black-painted fingers and yellow-painted eyelids. Ione explains that King Rowan chose the costume and makeup, likely to remind her that her father bought her place at Stone with the Nightmare Card or to mark her as monstrous. Elm quietly rejects the insult by wiping the paint from Ione’s hands onto his own clothes, then escorts her into the gardens.

In the rose maze, Elm and Ione search cracked statues for Ione’s hidden Maiden Card, using their horsehair and horse-tooth charms against the mist. When the search fails, Elm worries that Ione is angry and reveals his discomfort with silence and with Stone. Ione refuses to let Elm use the Scythe on her, because Hauth’s past use of the Card has made compulsion unbearable, so Elm gives her the Scythe and lets Ione try it herself. The attempt only returns the same memory: cracked stone.

Elm and Ione move to a mist-thick rowan grove and find a pond with a statue of Brutus Rowan, the first Rowan king. Suspecting the Maiden might have been hidden in the statue, Elm swims to the small island and searches its cracks. When Elm strikes the empty statue in frustration, the marble breaks apart and drags Elm into the pond.

Elm reaches shore, but his protective charm has been lost in the water. The mist enters Elm’s lungs and mind, speaks to him as a neglected heir of kings, and compels Elm to run deeper into it. Ione realizes what is happening, tears off her own charm, and presses it into Elm’s hand until the mist leaves him. Their shared rescue deepens the intimacy and trust between them as Elm asks Ione to call him only Elm.

Elm and Ione return inside still sharing Ione’s charm, and Elm changes into dry clothes so they can continue searching. Before they can resume, Physician Filick Willow bursts into Elm’s chamber, blood on his tunic, and tells Elm and Ione to come with him. Filick reveals the urgent cause: High Prince Hauth has awakened.