Elspeth exists in a strange shoreline space where the tide washes over her legs without changing. She feels no hunger, thirst, or exhaustion, and another name begins to surface in her mind as an image: a dark, watchful bird that resists being seen.

The image unlocks fresh adult memories rather than distant childhood ones. Elspeth remembers a masked man in a dark cloak, purple and burgundy lights, flight through mist, a callused hand touching her in a saddle and in her hair, and the intimate sound of a heartbeat that feels like a broken promise. The name finally reaches her mouth: Ravyn.

A little girl with carefully braided hair and brilliant yellow eyes appears beside Elspeth. The child identifies herself as Tilly, while Elspeth states her own name as Elspeth Spindle. Tilly asks to swing in the yew tree as Elspeth once promised, but Elspeth sees only the empty beach, so Tilly says she will wait in the meadow and walks away without leaving footprints.

After Tilly disappears, more voices rise from the darkness. A group of boys emerges from the far side of the beach, all with yellow eyes except the tallest, whose eyes are gray. The gray-eyed boy kneels before Elspeth and remarks that she is with them but never truly present, addressing the unseen presence as Father and deepening the confusion between Elspeth's identity and the consciousness sharing her body.