Shortly after sending Kivrin to the 14th century, Badri Chaudhuri, the technician who set the time travel coordinates for the trip, collapses, an early victim of a deadly new influenza epidemic that disrupts the university and leads to the city being quarantined. Kivrin also falls ill as soon as she arrives in the past. She awakens, after several days of fever and delirium, at a nearby manor, whose residents have nursed her. Being moved by her rescuers causes her to lose track of the "drop point," the location where she arrives and must return at a prearranged time in order to get home.