As the amphitheater collapses in fire and falling stone, Saeris lies near-dead while Carrion and Lorreth struggle nearby. Kingfisher cradles Saeris and tries to open a shadow gate to get Saeris out, but Taladaius grimly warns that the change inside Saeris has begun.

Inside Saeris’s mind, a calm, commanding presence offers Saeris a choice: pass through a “door” into the next place, or return and remain in Yvelia despite looming suffering. Saeris chooses to stay for Kingfisher, and the voice immediately calls in Saeris’s debt to the quicksilver—demanding an audience. Saeris agrees, and the quicksilver’s pull snaps tight, ripping Saeris out of Kingfisher’s arms and dragging Saeris across the labyrinth.

Saeris is hauled over a vast carpet of coins and yanked into the quicksilver pool, where the liquid metal binds Saeris and drags Saeris under. Saeris awakens in a bright field beneath a massive oak, confronted by identical, playful young women—Bal and Mithin—who reveal themselves as sun goddesses and brazenly question Saeris about sex with Kingfisher, their father’s champion.

Bal and Mithin transport Saeris instantly to the hilltop oak, where quicksilver runs like sap into a silver moat. There, Saeris meets their father: Zareth, God of Chaos (and Change), whose voice Saeris has heard before. Zareth explains the oak as the edge of the universe: its roots anchor fate, its silver leaves represent realms, and a spreading rot forces Zareth to destroy infected realms to protect the rest—an act that costs billions of lives.

Zareth reveals Saeris was meant to be born Fae in Kingfisher’s realm, but Zareth separated them by manipulating the events surrounding Saeris’s birth—yet fate still forced their collision. Zareth claims Saeris and Kingfisher’s bond creates a powerful “axis” that attracts a catastrophic counterweight, leading to futures where most of the universal tree dies. To save Kingfisher from Zareth’s siblings—who would rather kill him and reset the universe—Zareth offers Saeris a choice: sever Saeris’s thread from fate by transforming Saeris into something the universe cannot recognize, making the gods unable to see or interfere with Saeris and Kingfisher’s future. With time running out and death imminent, Saeris agrees, and Zareth triggers Saeris’s God Bindings before shoving Saeris into the quicksilver.