After the High Court revel, Jude returns to her room at dawn, overheated, shaken, and unable to sleep. She reflects on the cruelty of the Folk and on Madoc’s nature as a redcap, remembering the bloodstained hood he keeps in the armory and her own numbness when she tries to connect it to her murdered parents. At the window, a hob-like creature asks why she is tired, and Jude answers that she is tired of being powerless.

Jude sleeps through the day and wakes in time for lessons. She bathes, dresses in a tunic bearing Madoc’s crest, and finds Taryn subdued at breakfast. Jude explains that Madoc insists the twins be educated like the Gentry, a privilege that makes the other faeries resent them, but Jude clings to the lessons as proof that she can earn a place in Faerie.

Jude and Taryn travel through the islands and woods to the palace grounds, where the children of the Gentry are taught. Jude thinks ahead to the Summer Tournament, where the mock war will be watched by the royal family. If Madoc endorses her and one of the royal children grants her knighthood, Jude believes she could gain power and protection for herself and Taryn.

During a lesson on the peace between the Undersea and the land courts, Jude loses focus and imagines sword combinations instead of taking notes. At supper, Cardan kicks dirt onto Jude’s food, and Nicasia and Valerian join the humiliation. Jude tries to endure it, but when Nicasia mocks her and Cardan threatens her over the Summer Tournament, Jude talks back despite knowing that defiance may worsen the danger.

Taryn apologizes to Cardan’s group and later scolds Jude for provoking them, urging her to be afraid instead. During the mock war that afternoon, Valerian trips Jude and Cardan torments her further, leaving Jude bruised. Yet Jude concludes that fear has been with her since she came to Faerie, and instead of merely wanting equality with the Folk, she wants to defeat them.