Willow travels to Castle Naochi, which bears many signs of disrepair. She offers a hangover remedy to the young ruler, Kiri, and shows her wares. Willow gets permission to look through the books of the library to find items for a trade, and also gets tentative permission to look around in the ruins beneath the castle – despite protest from the butler, Rezhinald.

In the library, Willow finds various books that suggest a tie between Tachiri and dark rituals. She learns from Kiri that he has a map of the underground kingdoms, and gets permission to have Testament-Blaze work on making a copy of the map in his room. Willow brings up the idea of using some Abu Dhabian cloth as drapes for the room, but Kiri suddenly gets defensive, taking the innocent comment as somehow an attack on his masculinity, that such things sound "pansy".

Willow defuses the situation, then gets permission to go see the butler. In the kitchen, she confronts Rezhinald, who reveals that he knows Willow's true identity, and that he is indeed a Scryer. Rezhinald reveals to Willow that she was not only a daughter of Tachiri and Ria, and that her sisters were sacrified on an altar … but that Chiria Naochi was one of two twins, one of which was sacrificed, and the other secreted away. However, when Rezhinald examines a blanket that Willow had found, and tries to use Scrying magic to learn something from it … he reveals that the maid entrusted to take the little Chiria off to Himar must have been murdered at the place where Willow found the basket. That brings in to question … just how did Willow/Chiria get to Himar? Rezhinald has no answers. He does, however, indicate that he is doing what he can to keep this castle out of the hands of House Dack, and that an altar beneath the castle might have something to do with a plan to bring Dagh back to the physical realm.