Just as he is about to give up hope of Vanessa recovering from her wounds, Mirya and Terrill arrive, posing as healers from far away, and they heal her completely. Christopher befriends Vanessa and helps her to make sense of the images in her head that make her fear for her sanity, those images being the patterns of reality she can see because of her part-elven blood. She departs for Saint Blaise, but, arriving at the gates of Saint Blaise, she decides at the last minute to seek out whatever family of hers may still remain in Saint Brigid.