Bundling in layers and hiding a stolen knife, Feyre slips from her room to flee with the father she sees beckoning at the open gate. Tamlin seizes her and reveals the figure is a puca using her desires to lure her out; the illusion ripples from father to sisters to supplies before vanishing. He chastises her for risking a night escape and warns that worse things than the Bogge roam these woods.

Shaken, Feyre argues her vow to care for her family, but Tamlin insists she fulfills it by staying, since they are now fed and comfortable. As they return to the manor, he says there are no sentries on-site because his presence suffices, admits he trained as a warrior, and explains the puca and other deadly faeries once were contained. The blight—“the sickness”—has weakened the wards; when asked what else has changed, he answers, “Everything.”

Over the next three days, Feyre patrols the border with Lucien while Tamlin hunts the Bogge, remaining largely absent. Feyre cannot bring herself to shoot, sparing a red doe she sights. At dinner, Lucien reveals Tamlin’s solitary moods, his tendency to brood even after victory, and the necessity of a firm, sometimes brutal hand among faeries.

That night, Feyre dreams she again looses an ash arrow into a golden eye; the wolf becomes a High Fae whose flayed skin she holds. She jolts awake, overwhelmed by regret and shame over Andras’s death, the emptiness of her fulfilled vow pressing in as she rises from bed.