Emily wakes beside Wendell at their camp and presses him for the truth about the assassins. Wendell explains his stepmother cannot kill him outright without leaving a path to her defeat, and she believes Emily is effectively his fiance9e because she learned of his earlier proposal; if Wendell dies, his stepmother expects Emily to pursue a vengeance-quest. Emily bristles at the implication but admits she would retaliate if Wendell were harmed.

When Emily finds two of Eichorns ribbons in their bedding, she insists they try to use them to locate him. Wendell initially resists, then realizes he can sense Eichorn through the ribbons and follows what he identifies as a bogle path by interpreting the nonsensical directions Eichorn repeated. After an irritating half hour of wrong turns and cramped passages, they spot Bran Eichorn on a boulder calling for Dani de Grey.

Wendell takes Eichorns hand and pulls him forward, and Emily feels a violent, falling dislocation as the world rights itself. The three of them are suddenly in the mortal realm, with Eichorn free but single-minded, insisting only that he must find Dani. Emily promises they will search together.

Back at the cottage, Ariadne and Rose are stunned by Eichorns presence, while Wendell complains about the lack of breakfast. Emily pushes to act immediately, arguing Dani knows the nexus location and they must stop Wendells stepmother. Tensions flare when Rose warns Emily not to trust someone altered by fifty years in Faerie; Emily snaps that this is her expedition, and the shouting upsets Shadow. Wendell then collapses, and Emily realizes the effort of pulling Eichorn out has worsened the poison in him, leaving him to Ariadnes care while Emily, Rose, Eichorn, and Shadow pursue Dani.

Emily fits Shadow with a hobgoblin-made collar to enhance his senses and has him help search where Eichorn believes Dani was dragged through a door: a rise behind the church. Eichorn reveals the Grfcnesauge valley holds the nexus but insists Dani vanished here, and he produces Danis ordinary Cambridge key, found nearby after her disappearance. After a systematic search, Emily finds a concealed faerie door marked by stones and unnaturally dry soil.

As dusk falls and villagers begin to notice them, fauns emerge from the shadows and attack. Shadow, empowered by the collar, swells into a huge, bloodied hound and kills a faun; Rose is completely ensnared by the fauns enchantment and nearly walks into their grasp. Villagers return with lanterns and throw vegetable offerings to distract the fauns, but in the chaos Shadow bites Eberhard Fromm, lifting and shaking him. The group retreats to the cottage as Emily, shaken and guilty, fears both renewed Folk attacks and the villagers anger over what she set in motion.