Ferron’s repeated mental invasions begin to change Helena’s awareness of her own mind. Helena realizes she can use her resonance to shape attention, suppress thoughts, and redirect emotion, though Ferron believes Helena is only learning concentration. During one session, Ferron notices smoke rising from Headquarters and correctly guesses it comes from the crematorium, then asks how many soldiers the Resistance has left. Helena refuses to answer but says the Resistance will fight until no one remains.

At the hospital, Pace tells Helena that supplies are nearly gone, including gauze and opium resin. Because food, medicine, bandages, and other non-transmutable necessities are critically scarce, Helena decides to forage sphagnum and willow outside the city. Before leaving, Helena sees Luc and Lila sparring; Luc draws Helena into discussing his pyromancy and invites Helena to help with his formulas, giving Helena a rare moment of warmth and laughter.

Crowther interrupts and insists Helena come with him about hospital inventory. Luc tries to claim Helena’s time, but Crowther frames the matter as essential to soldiers’ survival, forcing Helena to avoid a damaging conflict by going with Crowther. Once alone, Crowther strips away Helena’s remaining informal freedoms and tells Helena that, as a known advocate for necromancy with conditional clearance, Helena must produce results with Ferron before receiving any allowances.

Helena forages in the flooded wetlands, harvesting willow bark while worrying that Ferron gives Helena no opportunity to advance the mission. Near the floodgates, Helena hides and sees necrothralls and dark-uniformed Undying personnel release a grotesque chimaera from a chained box. The creature kills and dismembers a necrothrall with unnatural speed, and the Undying leave it behind as a sentinel; Helena crawls away before the signal ring burns, summoning Helena to the Outpost.

At the Outpost, Ferron is irritated that Helena already knows about the chimaera and alarmed to learn Helena regularly forages alone in the barrens without an issued weapon. Ferron reveals that Bennet has been developing chimaeras for years and that this creature is only an early prototype, meaning the barrens and low districts may soon be overrun. Ferron insists Helena must be trained to survive them, and when Helena resists, Ferron uses the threat of demanding other forms of compliance to force Helena to accept his training.

The argument turns cruel and personal. Helena taunts Ferron about power, paid intimacy, and the fear of real connection, deliberately provoking him so the dreaded sexual coercion will be over. Ferron orders Helena to strip, but when Helena accuses Ferron of being dead inside and addicted to making victims responsible for their own pain, Ferron’s malice collapses into uncontrolled rage. Ferron’s resonance distorts the room, warping metal and threatening Helena physically; Ferron orders Helena out, and Helena flees the ruined Outpost door in terror.