At eleven bells, Jesper waits in a sniper’s position after Jesper and Wylan have triggered Black Protocol. Jesper expects guards to flood the courtyard, but when Wylan says he has finished his task, Jesper gives up the high ground so they can hurry toward the roof.

As Jesper and Wylan leave the gatehouse, six guards enter the courtyard, but the guards focus on two strangers in olive drab uniforms rather than on them. One of the strangers walks through a wall as shimmering mist before becoming solid, and Wylan identifies the pair as Tidemakers. Jesper realizes they are Shu.

The guards open fire, but the Shu Tidemakers vanish, reappear behind them, and use their powers to draw the blood from the soldiers’ bodies. Jesper and Wylan try to retreat, but the female Tidemaker appears on the stairs, kicks Wylan into Jesper, and the pair tumble into the courtyard. The Tidemakers disarm Jesper and begin draining Jesper and Wylan as well.

Wylan gasps a warning to Jesper: “Metal. Fabrikate.” Jesper understands that guns will not save them and reaches for the tiny metal particles clinging to his clothes from the severed gate-chain link. Using his hidden Fabrikator ability, Jesper drives the metal flecks into the Tidemakers’ bodies, overwhelming their attempt to turn to mist.

The Tidemakers collapse, bleeding and writhing, while Jesper recoils at having harmed other Grisha in order to survive. Wylan, badly weakened, urges Jesper to move, and Jesper forces himself to follow Wylan up the rope to the roof. Though the mission continues, Jesper feels that the fight has cost him something personal and difficult to name.