Still drugged and confused, Helena is dragged from her room by Lancaster, who assaults her, bites her, and tries to force her through an open gate. Helena cannot think clearly enough to resist or speak, but she clings to the belief that Ferron will come for her.

Ferron arrives before Lancaster can take Helena away. Enraged, Ferron beats Lancaster, disembowels him, and threatens worse if Lancaster ever approaches Helena again. When Helena murmurs that Ferron always comes for her, Ferron softens enough to examine her and realizes Lancaster drugged her by injection.

Ferron brings Helena back to her room, orders a necrothrall to clean her, then takes over when Helena panics at being touched by the dead servant. Ferron heals Helena's cuts and bite wounds, confirms Lancaster did not go further, and tells Helena that Ferron must spend several days in the city, so Helena should remain locked in her room. Alone, Helena showers compulsively, drinks laudanum-laced tisane, and sleeps.

The next morning, sober and terrified by what nearly happened, Helena refuses more laudanum and thinks about the suffering of other survivors, including girls trapped in the repopulation program. Helena is locked in until Aurelia storms in with a newspaper and an iron staff, sealing the door against the necrothralls outside.

Aurelia reveals that Aurelia was bred as a political wife for Kaine Ferron after two older sisters were killed before birth because they lacked useful iron resonance. Aurelia explains her lifelong effort to become the perfect wife, Ferron's neglect, and Lancaster's manipulation of her through parties and attention. The newspaper shows Ferron publicly disembowelling Lancaster, and Aurelia realizes both Lancaster and Ferron were focused on Helena rather than on Aurelia.

Consumed by jealousy, Aurelia binds Helena with iron and tries to gouge out Helena's eye as a gift for Ferron, whom Aurelia says collects eyes. Necrothralls scream through the sealed door, but they cannot enter. As Aurelia succeeds in damaging Helena's eye and Helena's vision becomes one-sided, the house itself animates: iron bars tear from the walls and floor, seize Aurelia, crush her bones, and leave Aurelia limp while the room falls still.