The
Crown of Valkei
(97,500 words), the second volume of
A Tale of Two Times
, begins with Isabel regaining consciousness in a strange bedroom. Leo, Antonia and Hans, who have assisted Yohanna in rescuing Isabel, find themselves in Antonia's house in Los Angeles to which they have brought Isabel. The house is under a lockdown during a raging storm in which the Ancient Foe and his Shade minions search for them. Yohanna begins to narrate to Hans, Isabel, Leo and Antonia the
Histories
' inscription of the War Thing of Ottilie Krüger. The Word Wise art of inscription begins to draw the four listeners, huddled in Antonia's house, into the newly forming War Thing.
In
The Menace of the Ancient Foe
(121,000 words), the first volume of
, at the biologists' costume party in a stone cabin in Southern California, Rhoda Knox challenges the Ancient Foe, and, after that, Rhoda disappears, leaving Yohanna Okubo to handle the aftermath. The blow intended by the Ancient Foe to turn Rhoda into a Shade or destroy her, falls upon Isabel Tavares, a Portuguese mathematician studying at New City University. With the aid of Leo, Antonia and Hans, Yohanna succeeds in rescuing Isabel at the last moment.