As the Abeyance arrives, Crowther sends no instructions, leaving Helena solely responsible for the choice to finish healing Kaine Ferron. Helena prepares what she hopes will be the final numbing salve, but Luc unexpectedly visits her lab and discovers how much Helena has hidden from him.

Luc tells Helena that Falcon Matias revealed Helena’s earlier censure for proposing necromancy on dead soldiers. Hurt that others knew before him, Luc frames Helena’s thinking as a failure to understand the moral demands of his war and faith. Helena realizes Matias is trying to make Luc see sending Helena away as a merciful sacrifice, so Helena apologizes and promises not to repeat the mistake. Luc offers to spend the night with Helena, but Helena refuses because she must reach Ferron during the Abeyance.

Helena arrives late and breathless at Kaine’s quarters. Because the Abeyance weakens the lumithium’s effect, Helena attempts to guide Kaine’s regeneration with vivimancy and close the array incisions over the fused metal. The work is dangerous because incorrect tissue formation could become permanent, so Helena keeps Kaine conscious and forces Kaine to move while Helena tests each repair.

The procedure is intensely painful. Kaine drinks heavily to endure it, while Helena repeatedly suppresses Kaine’s regeneration, cuts away failed tissue, and begins again until every incision is closed. When the work is done, Kaine’s scars are angry but sealed, and Kaine’s body moves freely for the first time in months.

After the healing, Kaine’s relief and intoxication shift the room’s power. Kaine appears newly changed, with a silver sheen in his eyes and a dangerous, uninhibited ease. Helena realizes Helena may have completed a transformation whose full purpose only Kaine understands. Though Helena wants to flee, Kaine coaxes Helena to stay and drink with him, and Helena agrees to one drink.