The Magisterium, finally convinced that Ashcroft is responsible for the attacks on the Great Libraries, instates a new chancellor and keeps Ashcroft’s manor surrounded. Nathaniel lapses into a feverish sleep, and the unconscious sorcerer causes it to snow on the whole city. When he awakens, he tells Elisabeth that he’s afraid that being close to him will cause her harm, and he laments her decision to give Silas 10 years of her life. Elisabeth has been worried that their first kiss was compelled by Ashcroft’s enchantment, but Nathaniel’s words reassure her that he truly shares her feelings. They embrace passionately, and Nathaniel begins to undress her. The couple is interrupted by Silas, who reports that something is wrong with the Codex.

Elisabeth, Nathaniel, and Silas enter the Codex but find that Ashcroft has already forced Prendergast to reveal his secret and departed, leaving the artificial dimension in a state of ruin. Prendergast is horrified to see Balthasar Thorn’s descendant, but Elisabeth assures him that Nathaniel is nothing like his ancestor. Prendergast explains that Cornelius the Wise built the Great Libraries in the shape of a pentagram with the intention of summoning the Archon, “a being of almost limitless power” that rules the Otherworld (352).