The Seventh Division reaches Khurdalain with three thousand troops and vital supplies, and Nezha has recovered enough from his Sinegard wounds to join them. Rin is relieved to have a former classmate nearby, though Nezha’s comments about the Cike’s madness unsettle her. When Nezha notices that Rin’s eyes are brown despite Altan’s red Speerly eyes, Rin is confused, especially because Nezha claims her eyes turned red when she killed the Federation general at Sinegard.

Enki interrupts and sends Nezha away, then warns Rin that Nezha’s dragon family crest may mark him as a shaman. Enki questions how Nezha survived two severe stomach wounds so quickly and suggests that Nezha is hiding something. Rin dismisses the suspicion, but Enki tells her Altan wants her immediately.

In Altan’s disordered office, Altan forbids Rin from spending time with Nezha, claiming Nezha is loyal to Jun and spying on the Cike. Altan’s paranoia escalates into physical and emotional abuse when Altan demands that Rin summon fire and humiliates Rin for failing. Shaken and bruised, Rin later rejects Nezha’s attempt to comfort her; their argument exposes old wounds from Sinegard, but Nezha sincerely apologizes for having tormented her.

During night watch, civilians suddenly flee downtown in panic. A terrified woman tells Altan and Jun that a chimei, a legendary face-stealing beast with red eyes, is tearing faces from corpses. Rin volunteers to hunt it because Rin remembers obscure bestiary references, and Nezha joins despite Altan’s resistance and Jun’s political insistence that a Militia soldier accompany her.

Rin and Nezha find faceless corpses in the abandoned market, including Federation soldiers who apparently died without fighting back. Rin suspects the chimei may have crossed into the world because Jiang opened a void at Sinegard. They discover a frightened little girl calling herself Khudali, but Nezha realizes an inconsistency in her story too late: Khudali transforms into the chimei, which uses familiar faces and voices to paralyze its victims.

The chimei first ensnares Rin with Kesegi’s face and then with Altan’s, while Nezha is injured trying to fight it. Rin realizes fire can hurt the beast and forces herself to burn and beat the chimei’s face until it dies, even while it looks and sounds like Altan. Afterward, Rin and Nezha acknowledge how the chimei used their grief and guilt; Nezha apologizes again, and Rin forgives him. Back at base, Rin confirms the chimei is dead but flinches from Altan, disturbed by having killed a creature wearing Altan’s face and by what that reveals about her own capacity for violence.