At dawn, Diviners One, Three, and Four return to the cottage after a night away, trading complaints about knights’ conduct, particularly Four’s discovery that the knight Wentworth is married. Their banter highlights the Diviners’ forbidden but ongoing clandestine liaisons and the need to preserve mystique by hiding their identities and vulnerabilities.

The abbess arrives with two gargoyles (falcon and wolf), reminds them that Benedict Castor’s poor Omens are irrelevant to Aisling’s concerns, and assigns One, Two, and Three to immediate Divination while Four, Five, and Six take on other tasks until the twelfth bell. After she leaves, Six, unusually, proposes that all six Diviners sneak off the tor after dark before their service ends in about two months. The group debates risks and escorts; Five fears danger, Four is eager, and Two is pragmatic. Six decides to seek an escort among the visiting knights.

Armed with a hammer and chisel for her wall-mending task, Six goes to the dining commons and confronts Rodrick "Rory" Myndacious, seated with Maude and King Benedict Castor. She asks Rory to escort the Diviners off the tor that evening. Rory refuses, citing their departure for Coulson Faire and a visit to Castle Luricht. Six counters that the distance is short and then accuses the trio of having taken forbidden Aisling spring water the previous night.

Six leverages the theft as blackmail, threatening to inform the gargoyles unless Rory escorts them. Tension spikes as Rory taunts Six’s devotion to Aisling and she retorts, slapping his spoon away and pressing her chisel to his nose. A feline gargoyle intervenes, and Six makes a final plea. Rory shows a fleeting softening but offers no commitment as Six is led out, humiliated.

Six spends the morning breaking stone to mend the east wall, venting about Rory to the batlike gargoyle. By noon the knights have departed, and the grounds fill with petitioners. Six resumes Divination duty: she drowns, dreams sequences (coin, inkwell, oar, chime, loom stone), and repeats the rite for another supplicant, growing increasingly ill.

Nauseated and exhausted, Six returns toward supper and confides in One that she longs to be free of the spring. When One asks about their plan to sneak out, Six, discouraged, calls it foolish. One asks for a story, and Six imagines the Diviners freely visiting the Cliffs of Bellidine and sleeping under stars without dreams.

One notices an object near the gate: a neatly bound bundle of six idleweed sticks with a note from Rory. The note instructs them to be ready by nightfall and jokes that the idleweed is to spare his boots, confirming he will escort them that evening.