Living as Mary and working at the Inn, Tim becomes best friends with a girl called Joh - a relationship complicated when she sees him as Tim and falls in love with him, forcing Tim to admit the truth. The two are forced to flee, however, when the Wild Hunt - a god-killing band of hunters trapped for 2,000 years by a compact of rulers from Heaven, Faerie, Hell and other realms - are manipulated by a disguised Auberon into hunting Tim and destroying the Inn. Scared and alone, Joh and Tim find some comfort from each other, with Tim losing his virginity to his friend - thinking that he had always assumed his first time would be with someone else.