After Helena tells Crowther what Ferron can do, Crowther removes Helena from Eternal Flame meetings and cuts off information about Luc. Others assume the change is punishment for Helena’s rumored breakdown, which makes Helena more isolated while conveniently protecting the Resistance’s intelligence from Ferron’s mind-reading.

At the Outpost, Ferron begins another session of mental-intrusion training. Ferron presses his bare palm to Helena’s forehead, and Helena struggles to redirect her thoughts away from Crowther, Luc, and sensitive plans. Helena uses the last Eternal Flame meeting as an approved distraction, recalling discussions about a new method for killing liches and Undying and about talismans retrieved by Luc’s unit.

Ferron repeats the intrusion, leaving Helena in severe pain, then gives Helena laudanum to keep her from blacking out. When Helena asks whether similar training happened to Ferron, Ferron says it happened more than once because others wanted to know whether Ferron would be better than Ferron’s father or break under interrogation. Helena senses Ferron’s loneliness and tries to make herself emotionally valuable, but Ferron withdraws and reveals that Bennet used to enter Ferron’s mind while Ferron was tortured, warning that Bennet would do the same to Helena if Helena were ever captured.

Later, while Helena works in the casualty ward, Ilva Holdfast and Falcon Matias arrive with four young women chosen as healer trainees: Elain Boyle, Marta Rumly, Claire Reibeck, and Anne Stoffle. Matias frames their appointment as sacred duty, while Matron Pace begins teaching them medical and security basics, including the need to check every patient for reanimation. Helena realizes that these women are not merely assistance but potential replacements, because Helena’s usefulness as a healer is being overtaken by Helena’s role as Ferron’s possession.

Within a week, Helena is frustrated by the trainees’ weaknesses: Claire and Anne resist forming resonance channels, Marta dislikes dirty work, and Elain eagerly but dangerously tries to heal dead patients. When Helena returns to Ferron distracted, Ferron unexpectedly tests Helena’s sensitivity to resonance before invading Helena’s mind again. Helena hides thoughts of the trainees by focusing on mundane hospital routines.

Afterward, Ferron questions Helena about Helena’s broad-spectrum resonance and why Helena had not chosen a specialty at the Institute. Helena explains that Luc wanted to travel with Helena, so Helena planned to decide later. Ferron mocks Helena for having been Holdfast’s pet, gives Helena another envelope addressed to Aurelia Ingram, and admits Aurelia is Ferron’s contracted betrothed, arranged by Ferron’s father when Ferron was nine. Ferron says the guild wants an heir in case Ferron loses Ferron’s body, but Ferron has no intention of visiting Aurelia again and lets the letters go astray.