- In the cave, the girls are all caught up in their own private miseries and Pippa begins to moan about her very old fiancé.
- Ann burns her skin over a candle flame. Pippa says she wishes she were Ann so that she didn't have the problem of everyone wanting to own and control her, which is so mean that Gemma can't believe she says it, but Pippa doesn't even understand her own comment.
- Then Felicity gets creepy and cryptically tells them a story about their own situation, though the story isn't nearly as creepy as Felicity is acting; she's like an angry, crazy, hurt girl.
- Gemma absorbs all the misery in the cave and begins longing to take the magic out of the runes, out of the realms, and into their lives to help them—she thinks she is ready even though her mother says she must be trained first.
- So she tells the girls her plan.