Alizeh scrubs a corner of Baz House’s grand sitting room after a bird fouls the marble floor, but she lingers longer than necessary because Duchess Jamilah is present. Hidden low behind the furniture, Alizeh observes the duchess’s nervous movements, overdressed appearance, and careful posing, and concludes that Duchess Jamilah is likely awaiting the visiting prince.

While Alizeh waits, Alizeh reflects on the prince and decides Iblees’s warning about him has not matched what she has seen: Omid is safe, and the prince once returned her parcels in the rain. Alizeh’s thoughts then turn to Hazan, the nosta hidden in her corset, and the shock of being called “Your Majesty” after years of abandonment. Remembering her parents’ death, homelessness, thirst, poisoning, and near death, Alizeh feels torn between hope at being found and fear that she no longer knows how to become the queen she was raised to be.

The prince arrives, and servants flood the room with tea and refreshments. Alizeh tries to escape with the departing staff, but water sloshes from her bucket; when Alizeh looks back to check the spill, Alizeh slips, drenches herself and the floor, drops the bucket, and badly injures her knee on the marble.

Mrs. Amina rushes in, calls Alizeh stupid, wrenches Alizeh upright despite her injury, and declares that Alizeh will clean the mess, gather her belongings, and leave the house. When Mrs. Amina raises a hand to strike Alizeh, the prince intervenes, orders Mrs. Amina to stop, and states that beating servants is illegal under Ardunian law. The prince threatens to have Mrs. Amina arrested if she does not step away.

Duchess Jamilah tries to excuse the cruelty as discipline, but the prince rejects this, pointing out that Alizeh merely slipped while carrying water and harmed no one but herself. Duchess Jamilah then orders Mrs. Amina to take Alizeh away. As Mrs. Amina drags the injured Alizeh down the hall and whispers that she would snap Alizeh’s neck if she could, Alizeh hears the duchess call the prince Kamran; the name comforts Alizeh even as she fears her life is being torn apart again.