Back in her office after breakfast, Emily finds Ariadne waiting with two copied parchment maps drawn by Klaus Spengler from Danielle de Grey’s originals, showing a mountainous region and the village of St. Liesl. Ariadne is thrilled by the possibility of learning what happened to de Grey, and Emily says she and Wendell hope to leave before the month ends. Emily also notes Shadow’s unusual watchfulness toward Wendell and questions Ariadne about Wendell’s birthday gathering, learning that unfamiliar people arrived later in the evening.

Dr. Farris Rose storms in furious and triumphant, declaring he is preparing evidence to fire Wendell for falsifying published fieldwork and to remove Emily as well. He claims Emily’s celebrated Paris paper is “hogwash,” treats her association with Wendell as proof of malpractice, and implies her work fits a broader pattern of deception. Emily concludes Rose’s hostility is fueled by resentment over her encyclopaedia and his own competing ambitions, but Rose warns he will observe Wendell’s upcoming lecture.

Emily searches for Wendell and then slips into the back of the lecture hall, where Rose is already taking notes. Wendell teaches in a rambling fashion and nearly gives Rose ammunition by omitting material, though Emily silently feeds him an answer. When the lights fail, blinding motes of faerie light seep in and grey sheerie assassins burst into the room. Students flee in panic while the sheerie hunt by scent; Emily uses a Word of Power to avoid detection, throws Rose’s coin-sewn inside-out cloak over the lights to extinguish them, and gives Wendell an enchanted pencil that becomes a sword. Wendell cuts down the attackers but admits they will regenerate unless drowned; Emily deduces he was poisoned at his party, weakening his magic.

As the sheerie revive, Rose tries to denounce Wendell’s true nature; Emily silences him with a slap long enough for Wendell to split the floor open into a riverbed and summon a rushing river that sweeps the sheerie away. More sheerie arrive, and a barely functional Wendell cannot fight again, so Emily drags him toward the museum while Rose, terrified, follows. Inside the closed Museum of Dryadology and Ethnofolklore, Wendell compels the curator to hide while Emily smashes cases for faerie stones, hoping to unleash something useful.

The stones release chaotic enchantments—parrots, banners, music, a hot-air balloon—while the sheerie close in. Wendell turns to an enchanted coracle ship whose magic creates an unseen tide; using it like a battering ram, he drives the sheerie into the invisible water until their lights sputter out. Rose is left glassy-eyed and unresponsive amid the flooded, bewitched wreckage; Emily and Wendell abandon him there, no longer an immediate threat. As they leave, Emily steals a leather collar she had wanted to borrow for Shadow and collects “spilled magic” embers from the battle in an iron-netted pouch.