From Kingfisher’s point of view, Kingfisher and Carrion follow Hayden Fane through Zilvaren’s Second Ward after Kingfisher finally recognizes Hayden’s faint familial scent as Saeris’s brother. Hayden ambushes them in an alley with a hidden knife Saeris had left behind, then angrily identifies Kingfisher from Madra’s new propaganda. Madra has spread drawings calling Kingfisher the Butcher of Zilvaren and claiming he murdered Saeris and other prisoners.

Carrion tries to explain that Saeris is alive and in Yvelia, but Hayden’s fear and grief make him hard to convince. Kingfisher loses patience and demands that Hayden come with them if Hayden wants to see Saeris. Hayden agrees, but first insists they return to the Third Ward because Carrion must say goodbye to Gracia, who has died.

Outside the city, mourners gather at Gracia Swift’s funeral pyre. Carrion silently offers his treasured book, Fae Creatures of the Gilarian Mountains, sacrificing the object that connected him to his heritage and to the family who protected him. Kingfisher explains to Hayden that the seventy-two-hour vigil over the dead began as a safeguard against transition, then comforts Carrion when Carrion breaks down in grief.

Kingfisher, Carrion, and Hayden travel back through tunnels beneath Zilvaren while the remnant quicksilver inside Kingfisher insistently urges him in a particular direction. Hayden’s complaints irritate Kingfisher until Kingfisher frightens him unconscious. After they retrieve hidden bags of silver and emerge near another of Carrion’s apartments, Carrion reveals that his foolishness is often a deliberate mask; anyone who underestimates him is making their own mistake.

In the Third Ward, posters now list Kingfisher and Carrion as enemies of the crown and offer a year’s supply of water for information leading to their capture. Guardians are waiting near Carrion’s apartment, forcing the three to flee under arrow fire. Carrion leads them toward a square, where they discover a cleansing day in progress: marked fourteen-year-old girls are being sedated and taken to the palace.

Enraged by what the guardians did to Saeris and other girls, Kingfisher stops trying to escape quietly and unleashes his magic. He forms black magical knives and shadows, killing guardian after guardian until Carrion calls him back to himself. Hayden directs them toward another route, and as an army approaches, Kingfisher discovers a vast reserve of power still within him and releases enough shadow and black sand to cover all of Zilvaren in darkness.