On a stormy night, Rune Winters treks through a wet forest toward a cliffside cottage, sustaining a Mirage spell with blood-drawn spellmarks on her wrist. Disguised as an old peddler leading a mule, Rune pushes through worsening rain and a pounding headache, determined to reach Seraphine Oakes after two years of searching.

Rune fears Seraphine will recognize her and kill her before listening, because Rune’s public identity is poisonous among witches: she is known as a Blood Guard-friendly informer who “betrayed” her grandmother. Rune remembers Nan’s final plea before her arrest: find Seraphine, because Seraphine can explain what Nan could not.

Rune reaches Seraphine’s warmly lit cottage and finds the front door standing open, as if expected. Inside, the single-room home is empty: a dying fire, untouched food, and no sign of Seraphine in the loft or the garden.

Hearing a horse whinny from the nearby stable, Rune assumes Seraphine went to calm it and heads back into the rain, trying to keep her illusion intact. In the mud, Rune finds a plain wool work dress and a cotton shift, both ripped down the back, and realizes something violent happened.

As rain washes away Rune’s spellmarks, the peddler illusion collapses and her headache disappears. A sudden wind slams the cottage door shut, revealing a bloody X smeared across it—the Blood Guard’s mark—confirming Seraphine has been taken, leaving Rune to grasp that Nan’s oldest friend is now in the most dangerous place possible for a witch.