In April 1787, Helena returns to the Outpost after a week away, anxious because Kaine’s tenderness often reverses without warning. A necrothrall waits outside the tenement, and Helena gives it Kaine’s letter and replacement medical supplies. When the necrothrall unexpectedly speaks her name and tells her to come, Helena follows it to the panic room.

Kaine immediately embraces Helena, and their reunion becomes intensely physical and affectionate. Afterward, Kaine examines Helena’s scars and admits he worried about whether he healed her properly. Helena reassures Kaine, but Kaine’s relief at learning Helena has been confined to Headquarters reveals a painful conflict: the order keeps Helena safer, yet it has also taken away foraging, one of Helena’s last feelings of freedom.

Helena admits she fears what will happen after the war because Crowther has implicated Helena in the Eternal Flame’s illicit prisoner experiments by recording Helena’s medical role in the underground cells. Kaine offers to help Helena run, and Helena longs for escape but refuses because Kaine cannot flee without being killed by Crowther. Helena and Kaine imagine leaving together after the war, though both understand the promise is likely impossible.

Helena then questions Kaine about new intelligence on how the Undying are made. Kaine dissociates but describes being drugged and strapped into a nine-point array while Morrough used his household servants as sacrifices. Kaine reveals that some servants were nearly family, especially Davies, who helped raise him, and that after Morrough inserted the bone shard, Kaine woke feeling the victims as if they were mangled and trapped inside him.

Helena explains that the Undying appear to be by-products of Morrough’s attempt to harness power without suffering its effects. Kaine realizes that if the Undying are Morrough’s power source, ending Morrough may require killing every Undying, including Kaine. Helena refuses to accept that outcome and resolves to study Wagner’s array and find a way to unbind Kaine’s soul instead.

Before Helena leaves, Kaine gives Helena replacement daggers made from her special alloy. Kaine also says the Outpost will soon be repaired and can no longer serve as their meeting place, so Kaine proposes flying secretly to East Island at night and using Helena’s ring as a signal. Kaine ends by telling Helena to call him and promising he will come.