While helping Bea with schoolwork, Maven recalls her mother writing furiously in the days before her death, saying that she was righting a wrong. Esme reminds Maven that it’s Halloween and makes Bea a witch costume, insisting that she take pride in her Blackthorn heritage. Though Maven and Bea do not celebrate Halloween in the city, Maven makes an exception while they are in Solstice. Maven wears a feathered mask and takes Bea trick-or-treating.

They go to the school gym’s haunted house, where they find Ronan dressed as Dracula. He jokes with Bea until the arrival of his date, Colette, who is dressed in a Wonder Woman costume. Ronan pulls Colette to his side and introduces her to Maven. Upon learning Maven’s name, Colette recoils in fear. The rejection stings Maven, making her recall various childhood bullies. Ronan watches with a smirk. Hurt, Maven warns Colette not to trust Ronan and pulls Bea toward the haunted house. Once inside the hall of mirrors, Maven realizes that Bea has disappeared.

Panicking in the mirror maze, Maven calls for Bea. She glimpses Bea’s figure and crashes into a mirror. Maven emerges alone, and Ronan appears and enters the haunted house to find Bea. Minutes later, he emerges carrying the girl, who explains that a mirror nearly fell on her. Ronan has saved her, and Maven thanks him.

When Bea asks why Colette feared Maven, they discuss their family being different, but Bea says she likes the aunts and Q. Maven and Bea get ice cream, Bea falls asleep, and Q arrives to drive them home. Maven sees Ronan watching from the shadows.

Maven struggles to sleep and accepts that she will always love Ronan. A frightened Bea enters Maven’s room, claiming to see little black-eyed boys in the woods. Maven checks Bea’s empty room, but Bea whispers the boys are now behind Maven. Maven sees nothing and takes the Bea to Maven’s room.

The next morning, Bea remembers nothing, and Esme denies having nightmare about snakes the previous week. Disturbed, Maven questions her memory. She goes for a walk and finds herself at the old Croft church where her mother died. She enters and sees the Croft family crest of a wolf with a lamb in its mouth. Ronan appears from the basement, harshly demanding she leave. Maven confronts him about her mother’s death, suggesting she was pushed. Ronan emphatically denies his father would hurt her and begs Maven to trust him and leave. Hurt, Maven departs. Walking away, she hears a scream from the church.

Arriving home, Maven sees the red fox watching her. Robert from Pinecrest Cemetery calls to inform her that eight Blackthorn graves, including her mother’s, have been exhumed and every coffin is empty. Maven listens to an old voicemail from Ezra, a colleague, who directs her to a Scientific American article. She reads about studies that Croft Pharmaceuticals funded on cuttlefish, ravens, dinosaur DNA, tree frogs, and red fox magnetoreception.

She calls Ezra, who explains that Croft Pharmaceuticals tried accessing their museum’s butterfly collection; this reminds Maven that Ronan claimed to have searched for her. This reminds Maven of a nightmare in which she screamed Ronan’s name and said she was righting a wrong. Maven theorizes that Croft Pharmaceuticals conducts illegal human trials on Solstice’s missing people, making attempts to cure a genetic disorder. She surmises that the company uses Anderson’s Funeral Home to obtain bodies, and she suspects that her mother was murdered for discovering this. She connects the studies to the fox that she keeps seeing and the blue morpho butterfly that Q found. Maven worries that Ronan’s mother died by suicide after discovering her family’s unethical practices. She wonders if the missing male Blackthorn babies were sold to the Croft family as test subjects.

Maven searches her mother’s room but finds only a salve recipe. She calls Cole Walker, laying out her theory that Croft Pharmaceuticals conducts illegal human trials in the church basement in order to cure a Croft genetic disorder. Cole calls back with new information, telling her of a 15-year-old mechanic’s lien for work on the church basement by a company specializing in large exotic animal enclosures. Maven concludes there are cages below and that her mother was killed by Elijah Croft for discovering them. She realizes that Ronan’s true goal is to obtain Bea’s DNA for experiments. Deciding that she needs proof, Maven takes her pistol. She fires Cole but instructs him to call law enforcement if he doesn’t hear from her the next day. Maven sneaks out and heads for the church.

At night, Maven goes to the church. The side gate is now locked with a new chain. She hears muffled screams from inside and realizes that people are being tortured. She climbs through a window and cautiously approaches the basement stairs, drawing her gun. A deep growl echoes from below. Maven turns to flee, misses a step, hits her head, and falls unconscious.

She wakes in Ronan’s bed. He explains that Edward (the Croft family’s version of Q) found her. He deflects her questions, claiming that the growls came from wolfhounds in the basement’s kennels. Maven worries about Bea, and Ronan confesses that he has guards watching Maven and Bea at all times, though he will not say what the guards are protecting them from. Ronan asks her to promise to stay away, admitting that he’s not strong enough to stay away from her. He asks, hypothetically, whether she would believe that he has loved her forever, and she says no. He tells her to leave Solstice. When Maven confronts him with her theory about illegal human trials, he laughs and agrees to show her the basement.

Ronan brings Maven to the church basement, which contains 12 large, empty, dungeon-like cages. Maven suggests that he moved the prisoners, but he denies everything. Ronan proposes trading truths. Maven admits that she now wears her hair down because he preferred it. Ronan admits that his sickness is a unique genetic mutation exclusive to his family. Maven admits that she never hated him. Ronan admits that he didn’t know she worked at the museum.

Instead of confirming that Bea is his, Maven vows to kill to protect her daughter. Ronan gives her an ultimatum: Leave Solstice in three days and he’ll let them go. If she stays, she is his forever, and he will never let her go. He kisses her and leaves. Maven discovers a large, black, scythe-like claw embedded in a cage wall. Leaving, she sees wheelchair tracks in the dust. Back home, she discovers that her pistol is missing, and she cannot find any animal whose claws match the one she found in the cage. She has a vision of empty graves under circling ravens. Esme informs Maven that Ezra has arrived.

Maven finds Ezra having tea with her aunts. Outside, he explains their boss, Luce, fired Maven. Maven suspects Ronan is responsible. Ezra asks to stay the weekend as a friend, and Maven reluctantly agrees, insisting he stay at an inn. Bea tells Maven she dreamed of being a large black dog hunting a huge lizard.

Unable to reach her bosses, Maven calls Ronan and accuses him of getting her fired. He denies it, leading to a heated argument. Ronan admits that he threw her gun away and offers to buy her a better one. Exhausted, Maven asks Ronan to tell her his side of their story. He agrees to meet at his house the next evening. Cole Walker calls to check on her. Maven lies, saying there was nothing at the church. Walker expresses skepticism but remains available.

Maven meets Ezra for dinner. The meal is awkward as Ezra drinks heavily and acts nervous. Maven shows him the claw, which he identifies as a talon, larger than any known bird’s, saying it looks too perfect to be real. After dinner, the intoxicated Ezra leads Maven to an alley and argues that they should get married based on logic and finances, not love. He insults her unemployment, age, and declining fertility, asking if she’s menstruating because she’s emotional. As a final insult, he asks if she thinks she could find anyone better. Suddenly, Ezra’s expression turns to terror as he looks past and above Maven. He screams, falls, and sprints away in panic. Maven turns around, but the alley is empty.

Walking home, Maven receives a text from Ronan, threatening Ezra for disrespecting her. On the phone, a furious Ronan admits that he protects what’s his, and he confirms that he was in the alley. Unable to sleep, Maven goes downstairs and sees a shadow with glowing embers slip into the greenhouse. She confronts the intruder and finds Ronan.

After a tense exchange, he grabs her and kisses her passionately. Maven reciprocates, accepting that she loves him. Ronan confesses that he would burn everything down for her. She forgives him. He clears a table and takes off Maven’s robe. He hesitates, saying that he is not who she thinks he is, but Maven claims him. They have sex as he mutters "You’re mine” in Latin. As they climax, Maven is terrified by a vision of Ronan with black ram’s horns and enormous leathery wings tipped with talons. Ronan becomes increasingly violent as they have sex. Maven finds this behavior perverse but loves it. She climaxes again before losing consciousness.

Maven wakes in her bed with a high fever. Esme tells her that she had a nightmare. Maven learns that the greenhouse door blew open in a storm, knocking over pots. She checks her phone and finds that her text exchange with Ronan, the call log, her texts to Ezra, and her work emails have all vanished. When she asks about Ezra, Davina pretends that she has never heard his name. The talon is missing from Maven’s handbag, and she begins to question her own mental health.

Dr. Hansen examines Maven at Blackthorn Manor but finds no signs of illness. He dismisses her symptoms as a virus and stress, then gives her unlabeled sleeping pills. After he leaves, Maven hears an increasingly loud buzzing sound. She sees herself in a mirror, her body covered in black flies with her skin rotting beneath them. She stumbles into the hall and crashes into Esme, hearing herself say that she is fine.

Maven takes the sleeping pills. She later wakes and decides to go to church with Bea and the aunts. The priest, Father O’Brian, and the congregation react with hostility to their arrival. Father O’Brian reads a violent passage from Revelation, which Maven hopes will convince Bea to become an atheist. After the service, Maven stays behind as the others leave.

Father O’Brian tells her that she can still be saved, adding that Elspeth was a believer. They debate the validity of Christianity. He grabs her wrist, hissing that the Old Serpent is rising to claim the queen promised to him, and presses a rosary into her hand. The large wooden cross behind the altar crashes to the floor, shattering. Maven sees the severed head of the Jesus figure staring at her, a statue of Mary turning to glare at her, and saints in the windows looking down judgmentally. Terrified, Maven feels a crushing, malevolent weight and runs from the church. As she bursts outside, a storm of ravens squawks her name.