Helena remains trapped in the ruined room until Ferron returns and melts the iron from her wrists. Ferron finds that Aurelia has dislocated Helena’s eye and punctured the sclera. Because Helena cannot heal herself directly through the manacles, Ferron forces Helena to explain the procedure, then channels his resonance through Helena’s fingers while Helena guides him through the delicate repair layer by layer.

Ferron also resets Helena’s luxated eye and repairs damage along the optic nerve, restoring partial sight. Helena tells Ferron to use diluted atropine drops to keep the pupil from straining. Ferron then turns to Aurelia, frees Aurelia from the iron that crushed her, repairs Aurelia’s injuries, and brings Aurelia back conscious rather than making Aurelia a thrall.

Aurelia is horrified that Ferron was able to act from the city, and Ferron reveals that Spirefell’s iron is his family metal and that he can control parts of the house at a distance. Helena recognizes this as seemingly impossible and suspects the watching eye in the room may have helped, though even that should not make the feat survivable. Ferron says the ability came from something Artemon Bennet did to him as a punishment, but refuses to explain further. Ferron then tells Aurelia that Helena is far more important because Helena is the last member of the Order of the Eternal Flame, and Ferron threatens to kill Aurelia slowly if Aurelia ever approaches Helena again.

Ferron moves Helena to another room, administers atropine, and later brings an optician to examine Helena’s eye. The optician first expects Helena may lose the eye, but after studying Ferron and Helena’s vivimantic repair, he calls the work exceptional and says Helena may fully recover if kept out of light and treated properly. The optician also reacts with condescension when Helena explains that her father trained as a surgeon in Khem, then remarks that Helena’s talent is being wasted while she remains manacled.

After Helena recovers enough to stop wearing the patch, Stroud returns for an examination. Stroud reveals that Stroud has reversed Helena’s sterilisation and declares Helena ready for enrolment in the repopulation program because Morrough believes Helena may be an animancer. Stroud paralyses Helena when Helena tries to escape, then informs Ferron that Morrough wants Helena impregnated before transference continues. Stroud names Ferron, another animancer, as the first chosen sire and gives Ferron two months to produce a pregnancy before Helena is transferred to Central for other candidates.