The day after Andrei’s warning, Diem continues making house calls through Mortal City while reflecting on his advice. Rather than making her accept the Descended’s rule, the warning strengthens Diem’s sense that she is meant to fight, and the strange inner voice within her answers that desire.

Diem’s final call takes her to a brothel on Paradise Row, where a sex worker called Peony has been beaten by a customer who tried to force himself on her. Diem realizes the blood covering the madam and other women likely belongs to the attacker, but she does not press them. Diem treats Peony’s bruises and helps the women distract Peony with joking conversation about work, desire, and men’s fantasies about healers and Descended women.

After Diem refuses payment, the madam insists that work deserves compensation and suggests Diem could earn well at the brothel because her eyes resemble those of the Descended. Diem declines, partly by claiming a betrothed, but privately recognizes that the real reason is her knowledge of how dangerous Paradise Row can be. The madam urges Diem not to choose a small life for a mediocre man and to be exceptional on her own terms.

A scream outside sends Diem into an alley, where she finds a mortal woman shielding a young child from a Descended man wielding shadow magic. The man reveals the boy is his illegal half-mortal son and plans to kill him to protect his family’s status among the Twenty Houses. Diem recognizes the woman as someone who helped her escape on the day Auralie disappeared, and Diem chooses to intervene despite knowing she is outmatched.

Diem’s ordinary dagger cannot harm the Descended man, and he murders the mother with shadow spikes. Diem tries to save the child by bargaining, even offering to claim him as her own, but the man refuses. Diem throws Brecke’s special blade and wounds the Descended man’s neck, briefly disrupting his magic, but he begins healing almost immediately. Realizing strength alone cannot defeat the Descended, Diem screams for help by calling “Fire,” then shields the boy with her body as the man prepares to kill them.

With no weapons left and death approaching, Diem recites the forbidden Rite of Endings, an ancient mortal prayer. The Descended man mocks her as a blasphemer and claims the mortal gods cannot save her. The chapter ends on a cliffhanger as he strikes.