Father Stocks eats the food Mistress Wurmalde serves them, but Tom refuses it – and thus avoids being drugged into a stupor. During the night, Mistress Wurmalde leaves Read Hall in a carriage and later returns, hiding the seer Tibb beneath her voluminous skirts. Mistress Wurmalde reveals herself to be an old enemy of Tom's mother from Greece, and tells him that his brother is being tortured by Grimalkin and it is his fault for continuing his mother's work against the Dark. She promises to release Tom's family if Tom gives her the key to his mother's trunks that he wears around his neck. She gives him one day to decide.