- It's now "many months" (3.1.1) after Mae's final encounter with Ty, alias Kalden, and she is still feeling rattled by the experience.
- All the same, Mae is proud of having exposed Ty's plan, thereby preventing the destruction of the Circle, and she can't wait to welcome the pure, clear, and brave new world that the Completion of the Circle is going to bring about.
- As Mae sits next to Annie—who's lying in a coma in the Circle's clinic—she wonders what her friend is dreaming about as she sleeps.
- Mae resolves to bring it up to Eamon Bailey and Tom Stenton the next time she sees them. After all, it's "an affront, a deprivation, to herself and to the world," not to be able to know another person's thoughts (3.1.7).
- After all, "why shouldn't they know them?" (3.1.7).
- "The world deserved nothing less," Mae thinks, "and would not wait" (3.1.7).