Jean-François Chastain wakes before full dark in his bed at Sul Adair, disturbed by pain from Gabriel de León's attack six nights earlier. Remembering how close Gabriel came to killing him, Jean-François feels a rare fear of death and answers it by feeding from and dominating two mortal attendants, using them to reassert his control.

Meline interrupts to report that Empress Margot Chastain commands Jean-François's presence. She reveals that Dame Kestrel and Lord Kariim, leaders of the Blood Voss and Blood Ilon, have accepted Margot's invitation to a Convocation, meaning rival vampire powers will soon gather at Sul Adair. Jean-François sends the mortals away and allows Meline to dress him, flattering and commanding his devoted thrall.

Jean-François walks through Sul Adair, the mountain fortress where Margot has made her throne, noting its grandeur and the way Margot has replaced sacred imagery with portraits of herself. In Margot's chamber, the Empress examines his lingering injury, toys with his fear and devotion, and critiques the chronicle he has been writing from Gabriel's testimony as incomplete.

Margot explains that Kestrel, Kariim, and the Draigann are coming because the vampire courts face disaster after years of war, scarcity, and uncontrolled foulblood packs. Margot intends to use the Convocation to force unity, but she needs an advantage: knowledge of the Grail and whatever power or leverage Gabriel still holds. Margot tells Jean-François that his youth, memory of humanity, and apparent kinship with Gabriel make him the right instrument to coax out the rest of the story.

Gabriel, meanwhile, has been pulled from six nights of starvation and torture in a tower prison. Servants bathe, dress, and feed him, and Gabriel refuses their sexual services while learning their names, Jasminne and Dario. Returned to the interview room, Gabriel understands that the comforts are part of a strategy but also recognizes that his captors need him alive for what he knows.

Jean-François arrives and offers to shave Gabriel, staging an apparent act of courtesy that also forces Gabriel to bare his throat. Gabriel refuses to be cowed, taunts Jean-François, drinks the wine he requests, and quietly memorizes routes and guards for a possible escape. Jean-François warns that Margot will return Gabriel to torment unless Gabriel continues, argues that the empire needs unity after Fabién Voss's death, and offers Gabriel a form of immortality through the written record. Gabriel finally agrees to begin again.