Joanna Kalotay remembers finding her father, Abe, dead in the grass beside their driveway with a book she didn’t recognize in his hand. She hadn’t realized at the time that the book was the cause of his death, but she was struck by the divergence from his “cardinal rule” of not “letting a book outside the safety of their home” (1). While it is not revealed until later in the novel, the book is an immortality spell that is keeping Library founder Richard Maxwell alive and is equipped with a “vampire” defensive spell that drains the blood of anyone who attempts to tamper with it. Joanna finds a note addressed to her, in which her father apologizes, tells her not to let her mother—Cecily—into the house, and asks her to keep the book safe.

In Antarctica, Esther thinks about the fact that she should have left three days previously, based on her father’s last instruction to her: Move every year on November 2 to avoid being found by the people who killed her mother. However, her relationship with Pearl gives her a reason to stay, so Esther continues with her life in the station as new scientists and workers arrive for the summer season.