Back in Hrafnsvik, Emily debates destroying the pages Wendell added to her journal, but keeps them because his account is useful to her research. During the journey home and after returning to the cottage, she sleeps for a long time. Wendell explains that helping forge the story-made sword drew on Emily's mortal strength because she has no magic of her own, and this gives her new questions about how mortal vitality can feed faerie enchantment.

When Emily wakes fully recovered, she shares breakfast with Wendell, Finn, and Krystjan. From their behavior and their questions, Emily realizes the villagers now suspect Wendell is one of the Folk because Lilja and Margret saw too much during the rescue. Wendell refuses the idea that he should have altered the girls' memories, and instead turns the conversation toward practical goals: finishing their paper, impressing ICODEF, and using any funding to search for a door back to his kingdom. He also reveals the white faerie cloak as a display piece for the conference, turning their dangerous expedition into a major scholarly triumph.

Wendell then shows Emily that he has already drafted an abstract and outline for their work. Emily notices that he has omitted his fight with the snow prince, and Wendell makes clear that he does not want to include the most unbelievable parts of what happened. This leads Emily to reflect privately that seeing Wendell fight with effortless, story-like skill has changed how she sees him; he no longer seems merely charming and magical, but fully part of the dangerous world she studies. When Wendell asks how Emily knew to draw the sword from the snow, Emily answers that knowledge of stories was enough.

Their discussion shifts to the risk of Wendell's true nature becoming known in academic circles. Emily worries that scholars might fear or persecute him, but Wendell dismisses the danger, arguing that Cambridge would laugh off any village rumors and assume the locals were superstitious. Soon after, one of Aud's sons delivers a basket of offerings to Wendell. Wendell is irritated because the villagers are treating him like a faerie patron, yet he cannot properly accept gifts for a service he never bargained to perform. Their argument circles back to the rescue: Wendell reminds Emily that she acted for scholarship rather than kindness, and Emily is unsettled because she knows he is partly right.

Afterward, Emily feels that she is missing an important pattern in Hrafnsvik and wants time alone with her notes. Wendell announces that he is going out, but is evasive about why. As he leaves, Emily launches into a theory about the kind of place where a door to his realm might exist, reasoning from faerie geography and story logic that such a passage is unlikely to be in Ljosland and would more likely appear in a wet northern woodland akin to his own kingdom. Wendell is struck by her reasoning and tells Emily that they are going to make a very good team, ending the chapter with a new sense of partnership between them.