Celie’s pleasure at pranking Khelsh comes to an abrupt end when he announces that he intends to kill the castle by using a spell his wizards have created. When the prince casts his spell, Celie feels the castle grow still. “The Castle was no longer alive, no longer listening to her, no longer waiting to stretch or change. It was gone, dead” (168).

Celie runs back to the tower to tell Lilah. Once she’s inside the room, the door disappears, sealing them both in. Celie looks through one of the spyglasses, but it has lost its magical ability to see objects miles away. Instead, she notices a flat roof twelve feet beneath the tower with a balcony beyond it. The tower contains a coil of rope long enough to reach it. Celie concludes that the castle knew something terrible was going to happen and stocked the tower room with the rope just in case.

Lilah lowers Celie down the wall so that Celie can find food for them and dismiss all the castle staff. Khelsh will be left with no one to wait on him. As Celie drops from the roof to the balcony, she encounters a maid.