Unconscious after Valen's beating, Oak dreams of a red fox who is also his dead half brother, Locke. They walk together through a twilight forest where unseen things rustle in the shadows. The fox tells Oak he has badly messed up and is close to joining him in death, claiming he's appeared only because Oak's plight amuses his trickster nature.

The dream surfaces Oak's complicated feelings about his bloodline. He recalls that Locke, Master of Revels, treated life like a story he could disrupt, and that Taryn killed him when Oak was nine. Oak insists he is not like Locke, even though they share the gancanagh power inherited from their mother, Liriope. The fox describes Liriope as red-gold-haired and universally adored, which Oak associates with Hyacinthe's grieving father and Dain, the prince who desired and murdered her.

Oak rejects being like his mother, admitting inwardly that he wants to be loved, but only a normal amount. The fox warns that Oak will die as Liriope and Locke did: murdered by his own lover. Oak denies he is dying, but the fox darts away through the trees, its red coat blending into autumn leaves that whirl around him as mocking laughter echoes through the boughs.