Isla Crown returns to her sealed glass room after secretly using a starstick to portal through distant lands. The device is painful and unreliable, but it is also Isla’s hidden way out of the cage where she has been confined for her safety and for the safety of others. Isla hides the starstick before Poppy and Terra enter and notices that even her guardians do not know about it.

Poppy, Isla’s charm teacher and guardian, fixes Isla’s ruined hair while Terra, Isla’s fighting teacher, watches suspiciously. Their conversation turns toward the Centennial, a hundred-day gathering of the six rulers on Lightlark that offers a chance to break the curses afflicting all six realms. For Isla, the Centennial is also nearly certain death, though curiosity and longing for the outside world temper her fear.

Isla reflects on Lightlark, the island where all Wildlings once lived before the curses drove the realms into newlands. Isla remembers an Eldress who told her stories of Lightlark before dying unnaturally, her body turning into bark and vines. Isla believes the Eldress’s death, the first of many, was Isla’s fault.

Terra asks whether Isla is ready, and Isla places the Wildling crown on her head. Poppy reassures Isla that she is enough, but Terra’s sternness prevents Isla from indulging in a sentimental farewell. Isla reminds herself that the Centennial is about saving her realm and tells her guardians she knows what she must do and will follow their orders.

As Isla walks through the living Wildling castle, the chapter explains the Wildling curse: they kill anyone they love and must live on human hearts, while their beauty and seductive power make them feared monsters. Because love has become forbidden and fewer children are born, the Wildlings have dwindled into a weakened, mostly female warrior people. The Centennial is their only chance to regain their power and end the curse.

Isla appears before hundreds of Wildlings, who use their diminished nature magic to honor her. Though afraid they will doubt her, Isla vows to shatter the curse, and the crowd responds with cheers and raised blades. Isla walks through the ancient twin-tree portal to Lightlark with her promise to obey Terra and Poppy still in mind, but the chapter ends by revealing that promise was a lie.