Kaz waits two days after Inej leaves the surgeon’s cabin before approaching her. Under the pretext of reviewing Wylan’s prison elevation, Kaz asks whether Inej can climb the six-story incinerator shaft; Inej points out that Kaz already knows she can and that Kaz has no other option.

Inej raises practical doubts about the escape plan, especially that the route to the harbor leaves them with only one way out of Djerholm. Kaz admits the weakness but insists he trusts Specht enough because Specht owes Kaz for recovering a denied navy pension. Kaz wants Inej to affirm that she trusts Kaz to get them out, but Inej instead turns the conversation to Pekka Rollins.

Inej says Kaz’s pursuit of Pekka feels personal, not business. Kaz unexpectedly reveals that Pekka Rollins killed Kaz’s brother, Jordie. Inej offers to pray for Jordie, but Kaz rejects her prayers; when Inej asks what Kaz wants, Kaz suppresses the thought that he wants Inej and instead claims he wants to die beneath his own gold. Inej says she wants to leave Ketterdam and never hear the name Wraith again, and Kaz responds that her share of the Ice Court reward can buy that freedom before walking away.

Alone at the bow, Kaz regrets telling Inej about Jordie and tries to dismiss his need for Inej as mere dependence on routine. The memory pulls Kaz back to childhood: after Kaz and Jordie’s father died in a farming accident, Jordie sold the farm, took Kaz to Ketterdam, and hoped to become a merchant while Kaz attended school.

In Ketterdam, Jordie and Kaz meet Filip, a boy selling wind-up dogs, who introduces Jordie to Jakob Hertzoon, a friendly minor merchant with a coffeehouse and a warm family life. Jordie works as a runner, Kaz spends time at the coffeehouse, and a successful sugar investment convinces Jordie that Hertzoon can make them rich. When Hertzoon offers a larger jurda opportunity, Jordie risks the money from the farm by loaning it to Hertzoon for the trade.

After a celebratory week, Jordie and Kaz return to find the coffeehouse emptied and locked. The supposedly long-established Hertzoon household is also gone, and a neighbor’s maid explains that the house had only been rented for a few weeks. Jordie clings to the hope that there has been an emergency, while Kaz lies awake with Saskia’s ribbon and thinks of a magician’s coin disappearing: there one moment, gone the next.