At the king's gift-giving ceremony, Emily sits beside him in an ice throne while courtiers and guests present elaborate offerings. Wendell, disguised as an unremarkable faerie, approaches with a pair of spring-warmed shoes for Emily; she realizes the gift must be part of his rescue plan. Even so, the king's enchantments leave Emily mentally fogged, and as the ceremony continues she becomes increasingly certain that the plan to kill him feels dangerously wrong, not merely risky.

Aud, Finn, and Aslaug then arrive as mortal guests and present honey wine. Emily follows the agreed plan by dropping a dissolving pearl from Wendell's veil into her own glass, preparing the poison meant for the king. But when the moment comes to hand him the drink, Emily cannot do it; she is overwhelmed by the conviction that this murder would ruin them all. Seeing Emily falter without understanding why, Aud instantly adapts and knocks the glass away.

The spilled wine smokes on the ice, and Aud claims the glass itself was poisoned by allies of the former queen, saving Emily from suspicion and redirecting the danger. The king comforts Emily at first, but the court's panic quickly escalates. A disguised woman is dragged before him and revealed as the former queen, armed with a sword, while guards attack fleeing guests and violence breaks out across the courtyard.

During the confusion, Wendell reaches Emily with a guard in tow, throws a cloak over her, and leads Emily, Aud, Finn, and Aslaug away. Their first attempt to leave fails because Emily is still caught in the king's enchantments, which loop them back into her chambers. Aslaug turns Emily's cloak inside out to help disrupt the glamour, and Wendell explains that the king's distraction has weakened the palace's layered spells enough for him to search for a narrow way through.

Wendell then guides the group through a shifting chain of spaces: baths, statuary rooms, the bloodstained courtyard, a poisonous winter garden, and the banquet hall. At last he forces a path through a servants' door that opens onto the mountainside outside the palace. There Emily sees that Wendell's shoes have transformed into warm boots with snowshoes built in, making escape possible; after a grateful kiss that flusters him, she follows him and the others down into the valley.