Helena spends the chapter’s opening trapped in pain, pregnancy, and dread over Kaine’s planned death. When Helena finally explodes at Kaine, blaming his secrecy and control for Lila’s death and their current disaster, Kaine absorbs the attack without defending himself. Afterward, Helena realizes Kaine has been provoking Helena deliberately because anger gives Helena a target and keeps Helena from turning fully self-destructive.

While Kaine is away with another shipment of prisoners, Ivy enters Helena’s room disguised as a lorry guard and claims to be there to rescue Helena. The attempt is immediately contained when the iron around the door seals them in, revealing how unprepared Ivy is. Ivy says Sofia admired Helena and that Ivy now knows Sofia is truly dead and would never forgive the betrayal that helped destroy the resistance.

Kaine arrives and nearly kills Ivy, exposing himself as the killer hunting Undying traitors. Ivy recognizes Kaine as the boy whose escape once distracted the Undying long enough for Ivy to save Sofia after their parents were killed, and Helena uses that history to argue Ivy can still be useful. Against Kaine’s distrust, Helena asks Ivy to steal Kaine’s phylactery, which is part of the outer bone of Morrough’s right arm; Ivy agrees to try, knowing the attempt will likely kill Ivy.

After Ivy leaves, Kaine gives Helena knives and a suicide pill in case Ivy betrays them and Kaine cannot reach Helena in time. That night, with Shiseo’s envoy nearing Novis and time almost gone, Helena and Kaine spend a final quiet stretch together, and Helena invites Kaine to use resonance to feel their unborn daughter. The next day, Kaine takes Helena to the stable for a reunion with Amaris, explaining that Amaris is meant to carry Helena and Shiseo away, but Helena must abandon Amaris before taking ship so the chimaera does not reveal Helena’s route.

Aurelia interrupts, furious that Atreus has turned Spirefell into a torture chamber and dragged blood and bodies into the house. Atreus appears, and after Kaine needles Atreus about Kaine’s mother and Aurelia claims she has made herself like Atreus’s wife, Atreus slits Aurelia’s throat. Once Atreus drags the body away, Helena realizes Kaine intended Aurelia’s death because Aurelia was a loose end, and Helena confronts Kaine about how often Kaine kills because of Helena and how their hoped-for future has collapsed under endless death.

Kaine admits that after Kaine’s mother died, revenge was the only future Kaine ever imagined, and that even falling in love with Helena only made the inevitability of losing worse. A sudden signal calls Kaine away to the city, and Helena watches Kaine fly off on Amaris before Atreus also departs by motorcar. Late that night, Kaine returns and tells Helena that the Eastern envoy’s train was attacked near Novis and everyone aboard was killed, including Shiseo.