A mother with a crescent moon birthmark refuses to surrender her infant to the Elders and is seized and imprisoned in the Tower.

Gherland and the Elders carry the baby girl into the forest clearing and leave her as an offering to the Witch.

Xan accidentally feeds the abandoned baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the infant with powerful, unpredictable magic.

Xan names the enmagicked baby Luna and declares herself Luna's grandmother, making the child a permanent part of their family.

Luna's magic erupts uncontrollably during a trip to the Free City of Obsidian, chaotically transforming everything around her.

Xan creates a spell that locks Luna's magic inside her until her thirteenth birthday, accepting that doing so will eventually kill Xan.

Antain visits the imprisoned madwoman and her flock of paper birds attacks him, permanently scarring his face.

Antain presents his plan to the Council of Elders to travel into the forest and kill the Witch.

Xan transforms into a swallow to rescue the yearly sacrificed baby, but Antain throws a rock and breaks her wing.

Luna and the crow use a map Luna drew to follow Xan into the dangerous forest.

Antain raises his knife to kill Luna believing she is the Witch, but the paper birds descend and he drops the knife.

Luna focuses all her love for Xan and uses her newly emerged magic to transform the injured swallow back into Xan.

Luna and the madwoman both say 'she is here' and notice their matching crescent moon birthmarks, realizing they are mother and daughter.

Luna magically cracks the pearl where Sister Ignatia's heart should be, releasing the Sister's buried memories and sorrow.

Luna holds hands with Xan and Adara and uses her magic to shield the Protectorate from the volcanic eruption.

The story begins when a defiant mother is imprisoned after refusing to surrender her baby to the Protectorate's annual sacrifice, and the infant is left alone in the forest. The good witch Xan accidentally enmagicks the baby with moonlight, adopts her as granddaughter Luna, and later locks Luna's dangerous magic away at the cost of her own life. As Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, Antain — haunted by the original sacrifice — sets out into the forest to kill the Witch and save his own newborn son from the same fate. A dramatic confrontation in the woods brings Luna, Antain, Xan, and Luna's long-lost mother together, where the truth about Sister Ignatia's cruelty is finally exposed. Luna's fully emerged magic allows her to crack Sister Ignatia's walled-off heart and shield the entire Protectorate from a volcanic eruption. The story closes with the old tyranny dismantled and Luna reunited with her mother.

The core story of Luna, Xan, and the battle against Sister Ignatia's deception.

Grand Elder Gherland presides over the Day of Sacrifice knowing there is no real Witch, relying on the ritual to keep citizens submissive.

Baby Luna says Glerk's name for the first time, instantly winning the heart of the swamp monster who had tried not to love her.

Xan discovers Zosimos's stone at the ruined castle inscribed with 'Don't forget' and walks through the magical doorway it opens.

Xan recovers memories of her childhood and learns she was brought to the castle of magicians as a small girl and enmagicked.

Luna awakens from Xan's partitioning spell feeling a nameless loss and finds she cannot perceive anything to do with magic.

Xan forbids Glerk and Fyrian from ever mentioning magic around Luna, choosing to protect her from the sorrows of self-knowledge.

Antain resigns from the Council of Elders and builds a thriving woodworking business.

Antain encounters Ethyne leaving the Sisters of the Star, and when she touches his arm, his heart soars with hope.

The madwoman folds a paper falcon that lands at Antain's feet; he opens it and recognizes the detailed drawing as a map.

Gherland and Sister Ignatia secretly agree that Antain must be killed in the forest before he can reach or expose the Witch.

The madwoman escapes the Tower by riding her flock of magical paper birds and travels to Xan's empty homestead.

The madwoman finds Luna's drawings covering Xan's walls and learns from the signed pictures that her daughter's name is Luna.

Ethyne visits the Sisters while Ignatia is away and reveals the truth that the Head Sister has been feeding on their sorrows.

Ethyne and Wyn free all the Tower prisoners and open the Sisters' vast library to the people of the Protectorate.

Glerk wraps Xan's body in a quilt of starlight, awakening her, and together they walk into the Bog.

While the main plot unfolds, a web of secondary characters and story beats shapes the novel's arc, beginning with Gherland's knowing exploitation of the sacrifice ritual and baby Luna's early life with Xan, Glerk, and Fyrian. Antain's transformation from a scarred Elder-in-Training to a hopeful woodworker and husband to Ethyne sets him on a collision course with the Protectorate's corrupt powers. The imprisoned madwoman slowly harnesses her grief-fueled magic, ultimately escaping on paper birds and discovering her daughter's name at Xan's empty home. Meanwhile Gherland and Ignatia conspire to have Antain killed, while Ethyne uses his absence to launch a rebellion, freeing prisoners and opening the Sisters' library to all. The fog of oppression lifts as truth spreads through the Protectorate and families begin to hope. The pool closes with Glerk tenderly awakening the dying Xan with starlight and walking with her into the Bog.

Secondary events tracing Antain, Adara, Ethyne, and the fall of the Protectorate's corrupt power.

A storytelling parent privately admits to dreaming of the sacrificed child as a happy teenager, hinting the babies may not truly die.

Glerk warns Xan that baby Luna's ever-growing moonlight magic will someday erupt and make her dangerous to everyone around her.

Xan confesses to Glerk that both of them have long buried painful memories out of fear and that she must go and remember.

Luna has a vivid vision of a black-haired woman with a crescent moon birthmark in a home she knows is a real memory.

Luna shares her buried memory of a dark-robed man and a woman screaming 'she's mine' from the ceiling with the Star Children in Agony.

Luna draws a map of an unknown forest path ending at a tower she labels 'she is here' three times.

Luna forces a blurred word on a scrap of paper to reveal itself as 'magic' and speaks it aloud for the first time.

Magical papers in the ruined castle reveal to Luna that Sister Ignatia is the true Sorrow Eater who preyed on young Xan.

Sister Ignatia confronts Luna in the forest about the missing Seven League Boots; the paper birds defend Luna and she escapes.

A flood of recovered memories reveals to Luna that she was enmagicked as a baby and that Xan is dying soon.

Xan looks into Antain's heart and discovers for the first time the full truth about the Protectorate's yearly Day of Sacrifice.

The mothers of sacrificed babies begin having visions of their grown children, and the fog of sorrow over the Protectorate starts to lift.

Glerk finally tells Fyrian the truth that he has always been small, but assures him his heart has always been Simply Enormous.

Xan tells Sister Ignatia that all the babies sacrificed over the years are alive and thriving with families in the Free Cities.

Luna folds Glerk's farewell poem into a paper bird, which transforms into a living swallow and flies away into the sky.

This pool traces the turning points and revelations that propel the story from its first hints of hidden truth to its final transformations. Early signs — Glerk's warning about Luna's dangerous magic, Xan's confession about buried memories, and a parent's telling dream of a supposedly dead child — suggest that the world's sorrowful lies cannot hold forever. As Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, buried memories surface through visions, shared stories, and a single forbidden word that unlocks her identity and magical nature. Confrontations in the forest expose Sister Ignatia's predatory past and force every major character to face truths long avoided. Xan's devastating discovery about the sacrifices, the lifting fog over the Protectorate, and Fyrian's long-delayed confrontation with his true nature all represent a world finally waking up. The pool ends with Luna transforming grief into beauty by folding Glerk's farewell poem into a living swallow.

Key revelations and emotional turning points driving Luna and the world toward transformation.