Bad weather limits Emily Wilde’s work, though she still explores a new stretch of forest, finds another hot spring and the edge of a glacier, and notices old food offerings left in icy fissures. Confident that the young faerie at the sulphur spring is not constrained by mortal time, Emily sends her brother money to buy a bearskin for future bargaining. At home, however, Aud’s hostility continues in small ways through ruined breakfasts, and Emily still cannot learn what offense she has supposedly given.

When Emily goes to the village shop, she passes the Egilson farm and notices a decaying blue house across from the shop. From its upstairs window, Emily sees a child-sized, unnaturally pale figure smile at her and press a blood-covered hand to the glass; when Emily looks again, the blood has vanished, making her suspect a dangerous faerie is living there. Inside the shop, Groa warmly serves her and identifies the house’s human occupants as Aslaug, Mord, and their son Ari, but Groa’s mood darkens at the subject. Emily is then shocked by the exorbitant price of basic provisions and realizes she may not be able to afford to stay; Groa explains that Aud insisted Emily be charged foreigner’s rates rather than treated as a guest.

Discouraged and worried about both money and her fading independence, Emily goes alone to the spring. The little faerie admires the beaverskin she brings and gives her a fresh loaf of bread in return. When Emily asks the terms for future bread, the faerie asks only that she clear a path from his aspen tree to the spring when winter snow comes. Because Emily is already struggling for food and fuel, she accepts the bargain despite her unease that relying on faerie aid may compromise her scholarly objectivity.

On her way back, Emily is soaked by rain and slips in the mud. When she reaches the cottage, she finds the door open and two sheep inside destroying her supplies, books, and furnishings while Shadow watches in bafflement. As Emily tries to drive them out, Wendell Bambleby arrives unexpectedly with two students, Henry and Lizzie, and is immediately knocked down by the fleeing sheep. Once inside, Wendell and the students help restore order, relight the fire, make tea, and settle themselves into the cottage, confirming that Wendell intends to stay and join her fieldwork.

By the fire, Wendell explains that he has come not to supplant Emily but to collaborate with her and present their findings on the Hidden Ones at the prestigious ICODEF conference in Paris. Emily suspects him of chasing credit, but Wendell proposes a joint presentation that could win sponsorship for further expeditions and raise Emily’s standing before her encyclopaedia and hoped-for Cambridge faculty application. He also praises the encyclopaedia manuscript she sent him, which briefly disarms her, though his schedule means Emily would have to leave Hrafnsvik by early February and finish her work far sooner than planned. When Krystjan arrives in response to Wendell’s presumptuous dinner request, Wendell charms him in fluent Ljoslander into sending stew, apple tart, and extra breakfast supplies, showing both his usefulness and his unsettling, faerie-like influence.