Overview

The nobles strike the Faithful Forester’s chime during Benji’s ceremony, and its sound alters thoughts—sometimes euphoric, sometimes agonizing—while idleweed smoke sedates and disorients the gathered knights. As the ritual devolves, birke sprites ambush the glen; Helena Eichel is devoured, Benji is saved by Rory, and Six and the gargoyle risk a midair maneuver to seize the chime. The knights slaughter the sprites, but the behemoth birke’s fall kills Maude.

Full Summary

Helena Eichel strikes the Faithful Forester’s stone chime, whose harmonious ring sends Six’s mind through vivid memories across her life; a second, discordant ring brings pain and fear, echoing the abbess’s words and showing moths covering Six’s armor. Around the glen, the knighthood staggers in a stupor, affected by both the chime and the heavy idleweed smoke wielded by Wood nobles during Benji’s rite.

Helena and the nobles pass burning idleweed, mouth-to-mouth, to Benji and then through the knights, deepening the disorientation. Hamelin tries to force smoke on Six and taunts her about staying close to the king, but Rory intervenes violently, warning Hamelin away. Rory fashions cloth masks to blunt the smoke’s effects and, with Maude and the gargoyle, resolves to secure the chime while ensuring Benji’s safety.

Helena strikes the chime again, triggering more disorienting visions. She proclaims the chime a divine gift that transports her through time and space, while nobles urge the knights to feel the “divine.” Six and the gargoyle share visions that mirror Six’s moth dream and Aisling’s horrors, blurring magic and memory. Screams erupt as the birch trees reveal themselves as birke sprites, their bark like skin and their knots like eyes, launching an ambush.

Combat explodes through the glen. Maude leads the knights, warning them to protect their eyes. On the dais, a behemoth birke looms over Helena and the incapacitated Benji; the sprite opens a mouth of darkness and eyes. Benji vanishes at the last second and reappears in Rory’s arms as Rory ferries him to safety, handing him off to Hamelin and Dedrick Lange to retreat. The birke seizes Helena and swallows her whole; the chime snags on a branch.

Rory hesitates to kill the birke, arguing the sprites are starved into monstrosity by the knighthood, while the broader battle continues and several sprites are cut down. The gargoyle offers to fly; carrying Six, he circles the behemoth so she can grab the chime. Failing to reach it, Six asks to be thrown, clings to the birke’s grotesque flesh, and climbs toward the chime as the fight rages below.

As Six seizes the chime, the birke suffers fatal wounds from the knights, especially Maude, who ignores Rory’s calls to retreat and keeps hacking as if to prove something or save someone. Six slips, falls with the chime in hand, and the gargoyle catches her midair, bearing her out of the smoky glen.

Six looks back to see the fallen sprites strewn across the earth. The behemoth birke collapses at last under Maude’s axe—and its fall crushes Maude, killing her as the glen’s assault ends.

Who Appears

• Six (Sybil Delling) — protagonist and Diviner; resists idleweed, identifies the chime’s mind-altering power, coordinates with Rory and the gargoyle, climbs the birke, and secures the Faithful Forester’s chime.
• Rory — knight; protects Six from Hamelin, provides makeshift masks, rescues Benji via teleportation/blur, tries to spare sprites, and calls for Maude to retreat.
• Benji — king; subjected to idleweed and the chime during his rite, becomes incapacitated, then is rescued and removed from the glen.
• Maude — knight and ally; leads the defense against the birke, persistently attacks the behemoth sprite, and is killed when it collapses.
• The gargoyle (Bartholomew) — ally; shares chime-induced visions, flies Six to the birke, catches her in a midair rescue.
• Helena Eichel — Wood noble; conducts the rite, strikes the chime repeatedly, declares it a divine gift, and is eaten by the behemoth birke.
• Hamelin — knight; attempts to force idleweed smoke on Six, is stopped by Rory, later helps escort Benji away.
• Dedrick Lange — knight; helps Hamelin remove Benji from the glen.
• Wood nobles in yellow cloaks — group; perform the idleweed rite, spread smoke through the knights, and incite the trance-like state.
• Birke sprites — enemies; disguised as birch trees, ambush the glen, the behemoth consumes Helena, and the last falls, killing Maude.
• The abbess — figure from Six’s visions; her voice and past actions echo through the chime’s induced memories.