Bailey wanders the empty field where Le Cirque des R4ves stood only hours earlier, unable to accept that it is completely gone without a trace. Remembering Poppet mentioning a train, Bailey runs to the depot, hoping to catch the circus train or find a clue to where the circus has gone.

At the nearly deserted platform, Bailey meets two people in black coats wearing red scarves: Victor and his sister Lorena. They reveal themselves as rveurs and explain they are also trying to follow the circus, though they do not yet know its new location. While they wait for a Boston-bound train, Bailey shares a simplified version of how he became friends with the circus twins, Poppet and Widget.

Near dawn, another rveur, Elizabeth, joins them, and she bluntly declares that Bailey qualifies as a rveur simply because he adores the circus more than anything. The three explain that rveurs form an informal network that tracks the circus and alerts others to its movements. The train arrives after sunrise, and they travel to Boston together, trading stories as Elizabeth knits a red scarf.

In Boston, Victor insists Bailey stay with them at the Parker House, and Bailey is overwhelmed by the hotel’s luxury. Unable to sleep, Bailey waits anxiously for news, and in the afternoon Victor admits they still do not know where the circus is, though they expect word soon. Victor and Lorena then take Bailey around the city to outfit him properly, including a charcoal-grey suit, shiny shoes, and a new hat, transforming Bailey into someone he barely recognizes in the mirror.

That evening, Elizabeth brings Bailey to a lively dinner with nearly a dozen rveurs. When Bailey asks whether something has been wrong with the circus recently, Elizabeth says it has not been the same since Herr Thiessen died. Bailey learns Friedrich Thiessen was a clockmaker and writer, considered the first of the rveurs, and that he made the clock inside the circus gates; the group describes the circus as feeling subtly off-kilter, like a clock out of proper rhythm. Victor notes Thiessen died a year ago tonight, leads a toast in his honor, and then returns from a brief absence with a telegram announcing the next destination: the circus has headed to New York.