- Char flips out and asks Ella where she's going. She replies that she must go. He commands her to stop, and that does the trick: she stops.
- He asks Ella what the blazes she thinks she was doing. She has to lie, since she's forbidden to reveal that she's under a spell, and she comes up with a half-hearted explanation having to with something about the ogre's eyes.
- Char goes all contemplative thinking about whether he should have a convo with his father (you know, the king) if the ogres are finding new ways to threaten humans.
- Meanwhile, the gnome baby is flipping out since Ella has been squeezing him while attempting to resist the spell. She calms him down with some Gnomic.
- They locate the gnome's family, and Grandma Gnome is super grateful. (She has a name, zhatapH, but obviously it's easier to call her Grandma Gnome.) Anyway, Grandma Gnome asks how they got the baby to go with them, since he wouldn't go with most humans.
- Ella says the one phrase she knows in Gnomic, and they translate it as "Digging is good for the wealth and good for the health."
- It turns out, Grandma Gnome has some advice for Ella: she says that the baby gnome is not the only one Ella will save; she will face danger and a quest, and there will be three figures that are close to her but not friends.
- Basically: proceed with caution.
- Before they leave, Char says he's going to add more guards to watch the ogres. Oh, and he'll catch a centaur to give to Ella. Sweet!
- Section break: Dame Olga comes to fetch Ella and put her in the carriage with Hattie and Olive to go to finishing school.
- Hattie and Dame Olga sneer about how few things Ella has. In fact, she has fewer trunks of clothes than Hattie. Gasp!
- Cue the awkward goodbyes. Ella hugs Mandy and doesn't want to let her go; Mandy reassures Ella that she'll be fine.
- Hattie haughtily says that she would never hug a cook. Well, duh, Ella says: no cook would let her.
- Ugh, we hate this part: Hattie and Olive find out about Ella's mother's necklace, and Hattie orders her to give it over. Because Olive also orders Ella to let her try it on, and Hattie orders the necklace returned to her, Hattie somehow works out that Ella has to follow orders.
- Poor Olive, alas, is too stupid to work this out for herself.
- Hattie tells Ella to let her have the necklace as a gift because they're friends (yeah, right). Ella has no choice but to comply.
- Being a snob yet again, Hattie remarks on how dusty the carriage is. She orders Ella to pick up a dust ball—which Ella happily does and then grinds into Hattie's face. (Hey, she didn't order her not to.)
- That's the last satisfaction Ella is going to get for a while.