In the woods outside Villon, Adeline hears a low, distant laughter as the daylight dies. She calls out, and a disembodied voice answers from the shadows, taunting her with the villagers’ distant calls and refusing to show itself.

The darkness toys with definitions of what it is, then draws itself into a man-shaped form lit by the village lanterns behind him. The figure has the emerald eyes and familiar face of the stranger Adeline has imagined and drawn for years, and it declares that she called and it came—if she is willing to pay.

Adeline digs up her father’s wooden ring and offers it, but the darkness dismisses it as a worthless trinket and crushes it into smoke. When Adeline begs and insists she will give anything, the darkness clarifies that it takes only one currency: souls.

Pressed to state what she truly wants, Adeline admits she does not want to marry or belong to anyone; she wants freedom and, ultimately, more time. The darkness refuses, saying her request has no limit or ending, and it will not make a deal that cannot come due.

As torchlight nears and Adeline panics at being forced back to her “small life,” she bargains again: the darkness can take her soul when she is finished with life—when she no longer wants it. Intrigued, the darkness agrees, seals the bargain with a kiss that draws blood, whispers “Done,” and Adeline falls into blackness.