Celaena goes to Baba Yellowlegs’s black wagon as the carnival is being dismantled, choosing plain clothes so she can move anonymously. She hopes Yellowlegs may have Sight and can explain the riddle found in the tomb. Yellowlegs immediately unsettles Celaena by smelling Terrasen on her and pressing for her real name, but Celaena gives the alias Lillian Gordaina.

When Celaena starts to leave over Yellowlegs’s price, Yellowlegs reveals that Dorian has already visited her and asked questions. Celaena realizes Yellowlegs is willing to sell the prince’s secrets and pays six gold coins: three for her own answers and three for Yellowlegs’s silence about Dorian. Celaena enters the wagon, which is much larger inside than outside and crowded with mirrors, odd objects, and an oven Yellowlegs claims is made from the ruins of the Crochan witches’ capital.

Celaena pretends the tomb riddle is part of a harmless bet, but Yellowlegs recognizes its importance. For more gold, Yellowlegs identifies the riddle’s subject as the three Wyrdkeys, fragments of a Wyrdgate. Yellowlegs explains that the Wyrd separates overlapping worlds, that gates allow passage between realms, and that the demonic Valg once used three stolen keys to open a gate and pour armies into Erilea.

Yellowlegs says the Fae stole the keys back, Queen Maeve banished the Valg, and Brannon Galathynius was entrusted with hiding the indestructible keys on the continent. Celaena realizes the riddle is effectively a map to the keys and that Nehemia’s cause, the rebels, and the king’s power may all be tied to them. Yellowlegs confirms that possessing all three keys would grant control over the Wyrdgate and that even one key would make its wielder immensely dangerous; Celaena concludes the king likely has at least one.

After the revelation, Yellowlegs disappears among the mirrors. Celaena draws her daggers and moves toward the door, not merely to escape but to stop Yellowlegs from selling Dorian’s secrets or Celaena’s own questions. Yellowlegs taunts Celaena from all directions, tricks Celaena with a reflection, and strikes Celaena in the head with a chain, knocking her face-first to the floor.