Alone in her room after Alice delivers the news of Penelope's death, Cordelia is consumed by guilt for not warning anyone about her mother. The realization that Evangeline will keep killing anyone in her way breaks something inside her, leaving her in an eerie, hollow calm. She resolves to act before fear returns and goes to find Hester, knowing the calm will not survive a confrontation with her mother.

Cordelia slips through the house unseen and enters Hester's room, declaring outright that her mother killed Mrs. Green. She explains that Evangeline is a sorceress capable of making people 'obedient,' controlling their bodies entirely, and describes what it feels like from her own experience. She also reveals that Mr. Parker, the man who axe-murdered his family in Little Haw, was a victim of the same compulsion, his daughter Ellen having been Cordelia's friend.

Hester struggles violently with disbelief. Sorcery of this magnitude belongs to old fairy tales, not reality. Yet she recalls Penelope's strange, trapped eyes and Richard's observation that Penelope walked over the balcony 'as if against the wind,' which matches Cordelia's description. Cordelia explains she did not speak earlier because no one would have believed her, and admits she is speaking now because her mother will never stop and she will never be free.

Wanting proof but afraid Richard's rationality will dismiss the claim, Hester wrestles with her own desire to believe, since the theory restores Penelope's honor and explains her sense of doom. Cordelia suggests Mr. Parker himself, if anything remains of him, could corroborate the existence of obedience magic. Hester seizes on the idea and rings for a servant, intending to send Richard to Little Haw to investigate.