Trying to escape her tangled feelings about Larran and the unsettling news from Radane, Kiela retreats into research, intending to find a remedy for Halio's waterless spring. She becomes distracted by a book titled On Storms, but concludes that taming storms requires a chorus of trained wind-speakers, beyond her abilities. She returns to the simpler water-flow spell and makes progress copying it down.

Larran arrives at the shop, having heard from Caz about Kiela's healing of the merbaby. His merhorse Sian, who was exposed to the storm during the rescue, has been ill. Kiela recognizes the symptoms of storm sickness and rushes to gather the spell ingredients, including more verisad leaves Caz fetches from the garden. She tells Larran she can help, fully promising rather than qualifying her answer.

At the jetty, Sian is weakening, her eyes clouded and scales streaked with purple. Radane, now staying at Larran's house, emerges and is fascinated to discover Caz can speak; Caz claims their remedy is an old island herbal cure. To cast the spell unobserved, Kiela invents needs for pepper and rosebuds, sending Radane to the kitchen and Larran up the cliff.

Kiela smears the remedy on Sian and recites the spell three times. Sian convulses, then recovers fully, her eyes clearing and scales returning to gold. She bounds into the waves with a delighted Larran. However, Kiela turns to find Radane standing only feet away, having witnessed the casting. Kiela crumples the spell page into the sea and insists it was just an herbal remedy, while Radane calls it "miraculous." Kiela is left uneasy about whether she has made an irreversible mistake by exposing her illegal magic to an outsider.