In another impossible “before” memory, Harrowhark stands in a loud, overheated amphitheatre during a formal gathering of the Houses. The music, light, crowd, and colors overwhelm her, while her Ninth House veil has been pinned back where it cannot shield her face.

Harrowhark is painfully aware of the Ninth House’s poverty: patched black lace, badly stored brocade, and rusting ancestral ornaments taken from dead forebears. The crowd avoids the Ninth delegation, which comforts Harrowhark because she dislikes both being crowded and having others inspect their worn finery.

Aiglamene, Harrowhark’s captain, quietly needles Harrowhark about having her face visible if she hopes to attract “Her Divine Highness.” Harrowhark insists she does not intend to compete or display herself like the other House scions. Around them, the other Houses mingle and dance in bright colors, while the Sixth House sits apart in grey; a striking Third House princess chooses to sit among the Sixth despite her own House’s attempts to pull her back.

Harrowhark grows increasingly tense before a couple approaches without a retinue. Harrowhark identifies the woman as Lady Abigail Pent, while Magnus Quinn cheerfully comments on the party food. Harrowhark’s certainty falters when she realizes she should not know Abigail by sight in this scenario.

Abigail then breaks the frame of the memory by saying she is sorry to interrupt because she would like to see where the “mixer” goes. She adds that this still is not how events happened, confirming again that Harrowhark’s constructed memory is wrong and that Abigail is intervening from outside its logic.