Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and analyzes the source text’s depiction of historical sexism, the marriage of an underage girl to an adult man, miscarriage, death by suicide, recreational drug use, and rape.

Matthew and Diana timewalk to Matthew’s Oxfordshire “Old Lodge” in 1590, where he’s known as Matthew Roydon. They’re met by playwright Christopher “Kit” Marlowe. Kit is also a daemon, and he is prejudiced against witches and suspects Diana.

Matthew’s servant Françoise dresses Diana in period-appropriate clothes, and Matthew warns Diana to be on guard before they meet his associates. Downstairs they meet another writer, George Chapman, a human, or “warmblood,” who is more welcoming than Kit.

The next morning, Kit and another daemon, Thomas Harriot, discuss Diana’s unknown accent. She realizes his friends are an infamous, mysterious group of scientists and scholars called the School of Night. Diana realizes that fitting into Elizabethan England won’t be as easy as she thought. Françoise and another servant, Pierre, see the large de Clermont brand she got for breaking the covenant, realizing she’s a timewalker.