Marinus, now in the body of Dr. Iris Fenby, travels from Toronto to Vancouver to assist their former student, Dr. Adnan Buyoya, after a patient named Oscar Gomez escapes from Adnan’s psychiatric hospital. The escape puzzles Adnan: Oscar inexplicably vanished from a sealed and monitored room. Marinus privately suspects that Oscar is dead and that the Anchorites are responsible.

When Marinus gets home, he opens a parcel sent by a Norse school governor on behalf of Esther Little. Esther had left instructions about the parcel; now the governor has fulfilled her request out of gratitude, despite over 40 years passing since their encounter. In the parcel is a tape made before the Horologists’ First Mission. On it, Esther explains that she had a vision of the mission’s outcome, leading her to seek asylum in its aftermath. She asks Marinus to help her get back out into the world, gives Marinus the word “Blithewood” as a clue for finding her, and warns that an Anchorite will soon come to make a tempting proposal.

Marinus is surprised—he’s believed that Esther’s soul had died in the aftermath of the First Mission. Elijah D’Arnoq calls Marinus, offering to defect from the Anchorites after becoming disgusted with them for consuming the soul of a five-year-old boy.