Kiela and Caz survey her cottage, deciding it doesn't yet resemble a shop. Kiela proposes building a dividing wall of shelves to separate the storefront from the kitchen, with hidden shelving for spellbooks. Lacking tools and construction skills, and rejecting Caz's worry about using magic to grow the cottage (which would attract suspicion), she decides to ask Larran to borrow a hammer and nails, offering tomatoes in trade.

Kiela and Caz walk to Larran's beach house, where he is grooming his merhorse Sian on the stone pier. When Sian smells the tomatoes and lunges, Kiela slips on a wet rock and tumbles into the freezing ocean. Sian grabs her shirt to soften the fall, then chases the scattered tomatoes. Larran helps a shivering Kiela out, both apologizing while Caz panics over her safety.

Larran brings her inside his neat, seashell-decorated home and lends her dry clothes. Kiela changes in his bedroom into one of his oversized shirts. When she returns, Larran is visibly flustered by her appearance, and a charged moment passes between them as he wraps her in a quilt—suggesting mutual attraction, though Kiela dismisses it.

Kiela asks why the ocean is so unusually cold. Larran explains that the world's magic has become unbalanced—causing withering crops, erratic rain, and shrinking merhorse herds—since the sorcerers were withdrawn. This deepens Kiela's resolve to find spells that might help. She finally explains she needs to build jam shelves and brought tomatoes as payment; Larran accepts without prying further, which she appreciates.