Emily explains that she went alone to the king in the white tree because bringing Wendell would have revealed that she had broken the ring’s enchantment. Although she knows approaching an unenchanted faerie king is dangerous, Emily is driven by scholarly curiosity and by the hope that freeing him might end the taking of mortal children. Before leaving, Emily writes Wendell a note warning him not to expose that she is acting of her own free will.

On the way, Emily visits Poe to use her third question and brings him a black bearskin as a gift for his new wife. Poe’s wife appears, and Poe calls Emily his fjolskylda, moving Emily unexpectedly. In answer to Emily’s question, Poe explains that the first queen trapped the king by giving him a cloak woven from all the seasons, cutting winter out of it, fastening him inside it, and turning the garment into the white tree. Emily realizes the imprisonment is less elaborate than she feared and, more importantly, connected to buttons.

At the tree, Emily keeps hold of her protective coin but deliberately lets some enchantment into her mind so the king will believe she is still under his control. The magic compels Emily to build a snowman and fetch water to freeze over it, suggesting the king needs a body. Ravens then descend, reshape the figure into something more human, and die in the process, confirming that the ritual requires sacrifice. When the king’s magic presses at Emily’s thoughts rather than directing her further, Emily realizes the king does not know how to free himself and expects her to solve the problem.

Emily connects the story of the cloak to the seemingly trivial Word she once learned for summoning lost buttons. Acting on academic insight and excitement, Emily speaks the Word nine times. Each time a button flies from the tree, and after the ninth, the trunk splits open like a cloak unfastening. The imprisoned king emerges in a body formed from winter and the dead birds’ offering, gradually taking on a beautiful, regal, humanlike appearance; he then animates the ravens again in a grotesque half-living state.

The king immediately addresses Emily as his destined rescuer, kisses her, and says a seer foretold that a “mousy little scholar” would free him and become his wife. He heals Emily’s mutilated hand, though her missing finger remains gone, and treats her refusal to marry him as irrelevant. When Emily argues that she is too plain for a faerie king, he magically changes her clothes and adornments, then insists that inner beauty matters most even while speaking casually of vengeance and ignoring the cruelty around him.

Finally, the king asks what sort of palace Emily would like and, when Emily cannot answer, creates one himself. With overwhelming winter magic, he raises a vast ice castle on the mountainside, reshapes its towers, and drives a shining road from it to the grove, knocking down trees in the process. Emily watches in terror and fascination, recognizing both the king’s immense power and the danger of what she has unleashed.