Valerie loses her patience with Uncle and quits her job at his shop. While the skirmish over the Rat Talisman and Gnomekop takes place, Valerie accepts a new job as a mail-girl and ends up in Valmont's office while making a delivery. A retelling of "Tough Break".
- Ditzy Secretary: When Valerie brings the package addressed to Ratso to the Dark Hand's headquarters, the receptionist, either too lazy or busy being on the phone, tells her to take it to the top floor instead of taking care of it herself. This leads to Valerie learning some insider knowledge, and only her fear of being assassinated prevents her from telling her friends everything she's learned.
- Evil, Inc.: The Dark Hand masks their skyscraper headquarters as D.H. Industries.
- Exact Eavesdropping: When Valerie realizes she's in Valmont's office, she hides in the cupboard when Valmont and Shendu are shown the animated Gnome Cop and learns that someone has hired the Dark Hand to hunt down the Talismans. However, Valmont's comment that he can have her quickly assassinated prevents her from telling her friends everything about her findings.
- Eye Colour Change: When Valerie has a surge of boosted chi from touching Shendu, he sees for a brief moment in her pupils a faint glow of red similar to those of his eyes.
- Held Gaze: Shendu and Valerie have one of supernatural variety when she first sees him in his statue form and he pretends to be lifeless. Both of them stare at each other as if they're in a trance; she's mesmerized by how lifelike the "statue" is, while he's fascinated by being looked at so reverently by her. She then attempts to stroke him and causes between them a surge of power, one of the last pieces of the puzzle Shendu needs to figure out they're Others.She stared at him, straight into his eyes, and Shendu felt something inside of him spark into a flame under her gaze, a heat blazing through him as he marvelled at how no one had dared to look at him so openly before. She looked at him as if he were something beautiful and awe-inspiring, yet gazed into his soul as if he were an open book for her to read.
- Hypocrite: Uncle, the paragon of Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!, has the nerve to criticize Valerie for lack of manners.
- Ill-Timed Sneeze: Subverted. When Valerie sneezes barely audibly in the cupboard she's hiding in, Valmont notices it, but Shendu, wanting Valerie to be unfound for his own reasons, snaps his attention back to their current discussion, and Valmont forgets all about it.
- Internal Reveal: Valerie learns in this chapter the location of the Dark Hand's hideout and that someone named Shendu has hired the Dark Hand to find the Talismans for him and become interested in her to the point of not wanting Valmont to off her. Her fear prevents her from sharing these findings with the Chans, though.
- Named by the Adaptation: Downplayed. The surnames of the Enforcers are not canonically revealed, but Ratso's is Muris according to the package addressed to him.
- Oh, Crap!: Valerie when she realizes she's about to be caught by Valmont in the latter's office.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Valerie and Uncle have a fight that's not resolved until the ending of the next chapter.
- The Reveal: By the end of the chapter, Shendu has finally figured out why he feels a surge of power whenever he's in physical contact with Valerie; she's his Other.
- Sexy Secretary: Subverted with the receptionist of the Dark Hand's headquarters; Valerie assesses she's beautiful, but her exuberant makeup ruins that.
- Technologically Blind Elders: Valerie's fight with Uncle starts when she tries to show him how to do online shopping; he soon throws a hissy fit and claims he needs no other technology than a phone and a radio.
- Troubled Fetal Position: Following the shock of hiding in Valmont's office and eavesdropping on him and Shendu, Valerie rushes to her bedroom's corner to assume this position.
- Villainous Rescue: Shendu prevents Valerie's Ill-Timed Sneeze from giving her away to the Dark Hand because he wants to figure out his still mysterious connection to her without anyone's interference.
- What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: When Valerie decides to pay the bills as a mail-girl, she thinks how hard it could be. When we return to her POV in the narration, she's already hating the extremely exhausting job.
- Witch with a Capital "B": Uncle calls Valerie an "undisciplined, bad-mannered, badmouthed little witch" while quarreling with her.
