With Crowther still absent, Helena reports to Ilva instead. Ilva first questions Helena about the Resistance’s research into nullium, the lumithium-mo’lian’shi alloy. Helena explains that Helena and Shiseo have developed a possible chelating treatment for combatants injured by nullium and that Shiseo believes the alloy cannot fully suppress alchemy in its current form, though targeting an alchemist’s hands could make resonance nearly unusable.

Helena submits Kaine Ferron’s report and awkwardly discloses that Kaine gave Helena memory-alloy daggers as a solstice gift. Ilva reacts coldly, then reveals that Kaine has been rising rapidly among the Undying and now controls valuable districts, including the factory Outpost Helena visits. Ilva presses Helena about how Kaine survived after the Resistance operation at the ports, revealing that the Resistance expected Kaine to be punished and die for his leaked intelligence.

Helena realizes that the Resistance deliberately used Kaine’s intelligence in a way likely to get Kaine killed and let Helena keep trying to heal him only because they expected Helena to fail and recover Kaine’s talisman. When Ilva asks how Helena saved Kaine, Helena admits that the sunstone in Ilva’s amulet broke open and fused a quicksilver-like substance with Kaine. Ilva is horrified, and Helena learns the amulet held the Stone of the Heavens.

Ilva explains that the Stone was not a divine miracle. According to Ilva, Rivertide was not destroyed by plague: the Necromancer, a vivimancer, deceived its people, bound their souls into the Stone, and used that power to reanimate them. During Orion’s battle with the Necromancer, the conscious souls turned on the Necromancer and destroyed the Necromancer and the necrothralls. Orion hid the truth to prevent anyone from recreating the process, letting the world believe the Stone was a gift from Sol.

The revelation shatters Helena’s understanding of Paladian faith, the Holdfast legacy, and Luc’s burden. Helena accuses Ilva of torturing Luc with a lie, while Ilva argues that Ilva has only tried to preserve Luc’s hope after Apollo’s death. Ilva says the Stone never served the Holdfasts and that Ilva gave it to Helena hoping it might protect Helena, only for Helena to use it on Kaine.

As Helena tries to leave, Ilva states that Helena must kill Kaine Ferron. Helena resists, arguing that Kaine has helped the Resistance and can still be made loyal, but Ilva frames Kaine as a threat to Luc and threatens to send evidence of Kaine’s treachery to the Undying. Helena pleads for more time and promises either to make Kaine wholly obedient or end the threat. Ilva grants Helena one month to present Kaine utterly submissive, or Helena must finish it another way.