While their father, Eóin, conducts business at Kildavnet, 10-year-old Grace intentionally leads her brother, Donal, deep into the woods for “practice.” As they wander, Donal, who has recently earned the byname “Donal of the Pipes” for his constant fiddling, reveals that Eóin plans to send him to fosterage for three years to be “civilized.” After an hour, Grace uses her compass to guide them back to the tower house, arriving just at sunset.

Eóin, drunk from his meetings, orders his children to sail them back to their home on Clare Island. He promptly falls asleep, telling Donal to navigate. Panicked in the dark, Donal relies on Grace and her compass to get them safely across Clew Bay. After Donal walks Grace to her tower, he returns to his own cottage. Upon hearing his stepfather, Éamon, having sex with his mother, Aisling, inside, Donal can’t bring himself to enter. He sits outside in the dark, watching until a small dark figure retrieves the sleeping Eóin from the boat.

At her castle in Bunowen, a 35-year-old Grace receives a wounded messenger who reports that Grace’s husband, Donal O’Flaherty, has been killed by the rival Joyce clan at Cock’s Castle. The messenger is later revealed to be Connor, the brother of Rory O’Flaherty, sent to lure Grace away so that Rory, Donal’s cousin, could seize the castle.