The morning after the Caravel, Conor wakes badly hungover and claims not to remember telling Kel he made a terrible mistake. Kel notices Conor's injured hand and reflects on the strange intimacy and limits of his life as the prince's Sword Catcher: he still shares Conor's apartments, keeps matching clothes for impersonations, and carries concealed daggers even on an apparently ordinary day.

At breakfast in the Castel Mitat courtyard, Conor talks restlessly about seeing more of the world and proposes traveling to Marakand, his mother's homeland. Queen Lilibet arrives, largely ignoring Kel, and first indulges the idea before refusing Conor's plan to leave soon because of court obligations. Instead, Lilibet orders Conor to oversee the next Dial Chamber meeting in King Markus's place, implying Markus cannot attend; Conor tells Kel to come with him, ruining Kel's hope of slipping away to confront Merren Asper.

Elsewhere in Castellane, Lin treats Zofia Kovati, a fierce elderly former pirate with a failing heart, then reflects on how she built a practice outside the Sault after Ashkar patients rejected her. Lin remembers being protected once by a Crawler acting in the Ragpicker King's name, and she thinks about how illness makes malbushim and Ashkar alike in their fear, grief, and need. Lin then visits Anton Petrov, her favorite patient, examines his mysterious symptoms, discusses her failed attempt to access an Academie manuscript, and again handles Petrov's warm gray stone before Petrov abruptly dismisses her when two rough northern sailors arrive.

After sword practice and supper, Kel and Conor return to find Charlon Roverge, Lupin Montfaucon, Falconet, and Antonetta Alleyne in Conor's apartments. On the West Tower, Conor tries to force a mood of amusement while his friends drink and gamble over foolish contests. Kel, uneasy and withdrawn, speaks privately with Antonetta, who says she came because she was worried about Conor and had heard marriage rumors; she suggests anyone can be forced into things if pushed the right way.

Kel's conversation with Antonetta reopens old wounds. Kel remembers their childhood closeness, Lady Alleyne humiliating him by warning him away from Antonetta, and Antonetta later returning to society with a false, glittering manner that cut him off. When Kel asks what happened to the bold girl he knew, Antonetta says that girl had no future on the Hill; Kel realizes that both of them have learned the painful limits of what their positions allow.

That night Lin dreams with terrifying vividness of an Ashkari man consumed by hatred, climbing above Castellane and cursing a book before throwing it into a whirlpool. Lin wakes before dawn and discovers Petrov's gray stone in her medical satchel, concluding Petrov must have slipped it in when the sailors arrived. A closing excerpt explains that Sorcerer-King Suleman invented Arkhe, Source-Stones that stored magical power and helped drive the Sorcerer-Kings toward ruin.