The Roach brings Lady Asha, Cardan’s mother, into Dain’s old office. Asha is pale, hungry, and overwhelmed by being outside the Tower of Forgetting. Jude hides how much she already knows, asks about Asha’s crime, and studies the resemblance between Asha and Cardan.

Jude prompts Asha to share the secrets Asha claimed to know about Jude’s mother, Eva. Asha says Eva missed the mortal world and that the two of them used to sneak across the sea to bring back ordinary mortal luxuries before Eva became involved with Justin. Asha then offers to tell Jude the real story behind the killing and burned body connected to Eva’s disappearance from Madoc, but only for a price.

When the Roach returns with food, wine, and a cloak, Asha demands freedom, safe passage away from the islands, and a promise that Cardan will never learn of her release. Jude realizes Cardan likely knows where Asha was imprisoned and has deliberately left her there, suggesting deep damage between mother and son. Jude refuses to bargain without proof that Asha has valuable information.

Asha then reveals that, while Eva was pregnant with Vivienne, a prophetic hag on Madoc’s land foretold that Eva’s child would become a greater weapon than Justin could ever forge. Asha suggests Eva may have fled to protect that child from fate. Jude conceals her reaction and tells Asha the revelation is not enough, then explains that any message Asha sends from the Tower will be intercepted by Jude’s spies, planting the mechanism for Jude’s plan to feed controlled information through the prisoner.

Outside the room, the Roach tells Jude that Asha appears to have been absorbed in palace pleasures while Cardan was neglected, suckled by a black cat, and later sent to Balekin after Asha’s imprisonment. Jude connects this to what she has seen of Cardan’s childhood cruelty and abandonment, but still orders Asha returned to the Tower because Jude values the planted bait more than Asha’s self-satisfied stories. The Roach then observes that Jude seems to enjoy manipulating the Folk, and Jude is left to consider the truth in his remark.