Saeris follows Tal through Ammontraíeth after receiving grim nightly reports from the camp beyond the mountains: more than thirteen hundred dead, more infected, and thousands of hectares lost to the rot. Warriors, including Danya, are hunting infected feeders, but the destruction keeps spreading while Saeris remains trapped at the Black Palace, ruling a hostile Blood Court because leaving power to another high blood would be worse.

As high bloods kneel for Saeris but fear Tal more openly, Tal explains that the court is archaic and terrified of what Saeris represents. Saeris reminds Tal that despite granting him discretionary rule, Saeris still holds ultimate authority and could change or destroy the court. Tal answers that Tal believes Saeris wants to save the high bloods, reform them, and eventually eradicate the horde, while Tal avoids questioning Saeris’s royal politics.

Tal leads Saeris up a long stairway to Ammontraíeth’s library, a magical place filled with living paper stargazer birds. There they meet Algat, the ancient Keeper of Records and Lord of Midnight, whom Fisher warned Saeris to distrust. Algat says Saeris is hungry not for blood, but for information, home, and release, and reveals that Belikon never entered this library because Malcolm forbade it; therefore, records on Alchemy remain intact despite Belikon’s purge.

Algat hints that Alchemists are dangerous and that both Belikon and Madra hunted and murdered Saeris’s kind for a reason, but Tal silences Algat before Algat can frighten Saeris further. A black, red-eyed shadow cat named Guru appears, and Tal leaves Saeris with Algat. Algat demands payment for help, and Saeris gives five drops of blood into Guru’s milk in exchange for one book.

After Saeris gives Guru extra undiluted blood, Algat reveals that Algat can hear Saeris’s thoughts. Saeris immediately commands Algat not to read Saeris’s mind or the minds of Saeris’s friends or mate again. Algat resents the command but obeys, then notices the glowing runes burning through Saeris’s gloves before going to retrieve the book.

While Saeris waits and studies the painted stars on the library ceiling, a dark-haired male vampire attacks from the shadows and tries to tear out Saeris’s throat. Saeris fights back, knees him, and stabs him with Fisher’s silver-tipped dagger, wounding but not killing him. Before the attacker can explain himself, the runes on Saeris’s hand flare painfully, releasing an uncontrolled white-blue blast that obliterates furniture, bookshelves, a portrait, and part of the palace wall, leaving a twenty-foot hole in Ammontraíeth.