Celia Bowen works alone in a crowded, improvised library space, poring over Marco Alisdair’s inscribed book and trying to decode its system of symbols, signatures, and bindings. Surrounded by caged doves, an elaborate clock, and her raven Huginn, Celia attempts to think the way Marco thought when he wrote the pages, but the logic still eludes her.

Prospero (Hector Bowen), haunting her as a shadowy presence, criticizes the ledger’s “messy” reliance on constructs and insists Celia is capable of greater power without tools. Celia needles him with Shakespeare and resentment, and the conversation turns to Prospero’s recent interactions with others connected to the circus.

Celia realizes Prospero spoke to Chandresh and effectively sent him to the circus on the night Alexander was there. Prospero admits he pushed a drunk Chandresh toward the idea of attacking Alexander, claiming the rule against interference applies only to Celia or her opponent, not to anyone else. Celia erupts, blaming Prospero’s meddling for Friedrich Thiessen’s death; when she loses control, the cages quiver and the glass on the clockmaker’s photograph cracks.

Prospero further provokes Celia by dismissing the circus people as disposable and warning that her emotions weaken her power. Celia calls both challengers cowards for waging their conflict through proxies and tells her father she hates him; focusing on a candle flame, she forces Prospero’s presence to shudder and vanish.

Elsewhere, Marco sits in his unfrosted flat and writes symbols on the window to summon his instructor. When the man in the grey suit arrives, Marco tells him Celia believes the game ends only when one of them dies; the man in the grey suit confirms it. Crushed by the certainty that winning would mean Celia’s death, Marco asks why he was trained for this, and the man in the grey suit says he thought it preferable to Marco’s alternative life; Marco locks the door, and the man in the grey suit leaves.