Ibrahim questions Jean on the stand, and Jean explains her practice of regression therapy and the nuances of trauma. When Ibrahim asks her if regression therapy is the only controversial form of therapy, Jean answers that hardly any of the disciplines of psychotherapy are free from controversy. Jean accuses Anna of defaming her because she didn’t agree with the outcome of Mary’s therapy. Jean also claims that Mary approached her, contrary to Anna’s claim that Jean recruited Mary. Jean turns emotional on the stand, feeling insulted by Anna’s insinuations about her profession. Anna’s defamation and the decline of Jean’s business have had a physical effect on Jean, impacting her sleep and causing her to experience mental health crises. She adds that she makes room in her heart for her clients, which is why their sudden departure from therapy makes her feel emotionally wounded. Gus despises Jean for her performance.

Gus begins her formal sessions with Jean, who institutes rules of discretion and total honesty during their sessions. Eventually, Jean suggests that other people cause trouble in Gus’s life, bringing her emotional relief as she concludes that she isn’t the cause of her own problems. Gus feels herself becoming more observant of the world around her, which she attributes to her therapy. As a byproduct of her therapy, Gus becomes more defensive, believing that her faults are not her own. She rejects criticism in her residency and starts destroying her work when it fails to meet her peers’ standards.

Jean influences Gus to think of their therapy as being mutually healing. She opens up about her own experiences, including a pregnancy loss she experienced when she was in her thirties. She claims that after she met Gus, she started dreaming of her daughter again. Jean explains that to help her process the grief of her lost pregnancy, she underwent an intense form of therapy that allowed her to revisit her earliest memories of trauma. When Gus asks how this can help to deal with present problems, Jean explains that this was Oriel’s concern as well. She indicates that Oriel is doing much better and that the past always has a bearing on the present.

Jean offers to conduct the exercise with Gus. Gus reluctantly accepts but trusts that Jean will take care of her. Jean gives Gus a massage, during which Gus falls asleep and wakes up 20 minutes later. In the first exercise, Gus recalls her happy places, which include Mary’s bedroom, Jean’s apartment, and the church hall where she used to play in the summer. She then recalls the office of her principal, Mr. Greening, and sees her mother standing disappointed beside her. Jean invites Gus to speak to her younger self, and Gus reassures her that loving Polly wasn’t wrong. Jean affirms Gus for this breakthrough and criticizes Gus’s parents for failing her. Gus affirms Jean as the person teaching her how to love.

Carr cross-examines Jean. She challenges Jean’s credentials, indicating that Jean’s practice does not require strict regulations. When Carr asks if Jean obtains consent from her clients before administering her methods, Jean avoids the question. Carr explains that her ex-clients have reported that Jean recorded their sessions or performed hypnotherapy without the clients’ consent. This left them pliable for Jean to insert fabricated memories into their sessions. In one case, an ex-client reported that Jean extorted her with her session recordings. Jean denies that the investigation yielded any conclusive findings related to this report.

Carr asks about Jean’s stewardship of Mary’s properties. Jean indicates that Mary felt indebted to her after Anna’s newsletter was published and volunteered her properties as a form of support. Jean continued to work with Mary, despite the decline of her practice, out of loyalty to her and empathy for her problems. Jean exchanges a knowing glance with Gus.

As the Christmas break approaches, Gus becomes anxious over whether she will still get to model for Mary in the coming year.

The Melrose Academy throws an Ancient Rome-themed Christmas Party. Gus asks Jean for help with the directions to the venue. Jean also comments that Mary will not like the outfit Gus is wearing, which Gus finds odd. Mary finds Gus as soon as she arrives, but she excuses herself to greet her mother, Anna, who is also attending the party. Lawrence steals Anna away, embarrassing Mary.

During dinner, Gus overhears a conversation about Oriel, who interrupted her studies because she became involved with a “guru.” After the meal, Gus looks for Mary and is surprised to see Jean at the party, wondering why she hadn’t mentioned that she would come. Gus bumps into Anna and introduces herself as Mary’s friend. She then finds Mary on the dance floor with her friends and joins them. Mary tells Gus she has met someone named “Jane” or “Jenny,” which makes Gus anxious. Mary then gets a text, presumably from Vincenzo, and excuses herself from the dance floor. Gus finds her phone dead on a table, then pursues Mary to catch a glimpse of Vincenzo. She finds Mary in the cloakroom but with Lawrence, not Vincenzo. Gus realizes that Vincenzo is a fabricated persona for Lawrence.

Gus retreats to Jean’s apartment, shocked by what she has seen. While Gus is in the bath, Jean insists that Lawrence is victimizing Mary. She urges Gus to tell someone else, but Gus worries this may disrupt the salary she receives from her modeling work. Jean uses this quandary to pressure Gus into sending Mary to her.

At her final sitting for the year, Gus shares her plan to visit Venice instead of going home to celebrate Christmas with her family. Mary shares that Anna will likely involve her in filming a Christmas special program, which she is dreading. Gus quietly resents that Mary has been lying to her about Vincenzo. Later, Lawrence comes to assess Mary’s work and invites Gus to look at it for the first time. Gus is shocked by how terrible the portrait is. She realizes that Mary does not love her but compliments the portrait anyway. Mary observes that Gus looks upset.

Gus, Mary, and friends go for one final night out before the break. Cleo worries at one point that Bea is missing. A drunken Gus retreats from Mary to lament her disappointment. When Mary finds her, Gus criticizes her for looking so messy. Mary registers her antagonism and connects it to the portrait. Gus alludes to seeing Mary and Lawrence together at the party and expresses her disappointment in Mary. Mary admits that Lawrence has been sexually abusing her since she was in secondary school. Anna forced her to attend Melrose Academy. As Lawrence’s student, Mary felt she gained more control over the terms of their relationship. At the same time, Gus understands that Mary doesn’t have any feelings for Lawrence.

Gus urges Mary to leave the academy. Mary fears disappointing her mother and telling her the truth about Lawrence, who is a longtime family friend. She asserts that even if she does tell Anna the truth, Anna will do nothing about it. Mary hopes that Gus hasn’t told anyone else about her and Lawrence. Gus suggests sending Mary to Jean’s house in Primrose Hill as a retreat from Anna’s influence. From there, Gus fantasizes that they will get to plan where to move next together.

Gus brings Mary to Jean’s apartment. Jean gives Gus some money for her trip to Venice. The next day, Gus worries that she hasn’t gotten any messages from Jean and Mary. Mary later texts to say that she will be staying in Rome to work with Jean. All throughout her trip to Venice, Gus keeps wondering about Jean and Mary, feeling envious of their growing relationship. She returns to Rome on New Year’s Eve and proceeds to Jean’s apartment. The apartment has been vacated; a cleaning lady reveals that it was an Airbnb unit. Gus realizes that both women have abandoned her. She resolves to find them.

Carr questions Lucy on the witness stand. She asks about the email Lucy received from Oriel, which Lucy asserts was written by Jean. She establishes that her and Anna’s experiences reveal the pattern of Jean’s predatory behavior. Carr shares her condolences with Lucy, implying that Oriel has recently died.

The novel flashes back to the day Gus received Mary’s email, which happened shortly after Gus returned to London from Rome. Gus mocked Mary’s assertion that she needed to sequester herself from Gus in order to heal, then she messaged Jean to ask if she had gotten the same email. When Jean replied, Gus arranged to visit her. Jean tried to soothe Gus’s feelings about Mary’s email, revealing that she helped Mary write it. Jean’s insistence that Mary stay away from her friends confused Gus, especially when Jean asserted that Gus was scaring Mary. Gus relented, embarrassed, but asked Jean to pass along photos of them and a letter she had written to Mary.

Jean then suggested that Gus should move to Stoke-on-Trent to continue developing her ceramic skills, adding that Anna lived in the area. Jean indicated that Gus’s move would benefit Jean as well, as she needed to prioritize her work with Mary over her friendship with Gus. She urged Gus to see how letting go could be a form of love. After staying over at Jean’s place, Gus heard Jean answering someone aggressively knocking on the door, calling for Oriel. Jean later denied that anyone had come.

In the present, Gus realizes that she had heard Lucy at the door that morning. Lucy discusses how her family attempted to reintegrate Oriel in the wake of Jean’s abuse. Oriel experienced several mental health crises, however, and died by suicide. Lucy speculates that Oriel felt guilty about the possibility of testifying against Jean for Anna’s case. Gus walks out of the courtroom, upset. She later reviews the statement she has made for when she will take the witness stand and begins writing an apologetic email to Anna’s legal team.

The novel flashes back to the night that Gus dropped Mary’s perfume in front of Bonamy and Anna. Gus narrates that Jean had been emotionally extorting her into engaging with Anna, but she had become more sympathetic to Anna in the process. She decided to drop the perfume to confess her connection to Mary, but Bonamy and Anna failed to understand the connection.

Gus grew distant from Anna, especially after she started spending more time away from Stoke-on-Trent. Later, Anna invited Gus to her annual Notting Hill Carnival party, asking her to bring Quill along. Gus arrived while Anna and her friends, including Lawrence, were playing the name game. While playing the game, Anna called her friends’ attention to Gus, making her worry that Lawrence would recognize her.

When she believed she had escaped Lawrence’s attention, Gus went upstairs and snuck into Mary’s room. She was caught by Anna and Lawrence, who were taking drugs in Mary’s bathroom. Lawrence recognized Gus as Mary’s model, which forced Gus to admit it was true and that Lawrence had repeatedly abused Mary. Anna became upset, accusing Gus of exploiting her trust. Lawrence deflected Gus’s accusations of sexual abuse by suggesting that Gus was equally obsessed with Mary in Rome.

It gradually dawned on Gus that Jean had influenced Mary into falsely believing that Anna knew that Lawrence had abused her. Anna refused to believe Gus’s claims and asked Bonamy to throw Gus out. Gus appealed to Bonamy. Bonamy believed her, having elicited a reaction from Mary when he mentioned Lawrence to her during their brief encounter. Bonamy urged Gus to testify on Anna’s behalf and cut off all contact with their family afterward.