Nona explains the household arrangement: Pyrrha works for her, Camilla looks after her, and Palamedes teaches her because they believe she is not simply herself, but probably connected to one of two other people. Nona does not know either possible real name. She was called Nona because her first words after being rescued sounded like “No, no,” and because nine is important.

Nona reflects on her body with curiosity and vanity. Palamedes has explained that eye color can reveal whose soul is present in whose body: Pyrrha, Camilla, and Palamedes all have eyes associated with other people, and Nona’s golden eyes may mean she is like them or may mean something else. Palamedes suspects more than simple memory loss, but Nona mainly cares that she looks beautiful.

Nona recalls an incident in a crowded shop when a stranger flirted with her, touched her, and wanted something sexual. Camilla intervened by calmly threatening the person with her knife, then told Nona to move away and get one of the household if anyone unfamiliar touched her. Nona’s blunt understanding of the stranger’s intentions unsettled Camilla, who set firm boundaries about sex and strangers and made more notes.

Nona then describes how capable the others are and how hard it was at first to feel useless. Pyrrha plans, earns money at cards, cooks, handles weapons, and enforces weekly code words for danger, surveillance, and resources. Camilla can fight, solve practical problems, and intimidate dangerous people. Palamedes thinks, studies Nona, and tests whether she can perform necromantic bone work, but Nona cannot fight, shoot, think like Palamedes, or do the forbidden bone tricks.

Over six months, Nona has regained basic abilities such as dressing, bathing, pouring water, and understanding daily expectations. She values touch and affection, and the household has grown more comfortable giving it to her. Nona’s useful talents are limited but striking: she can comfort through touch, help with chores, sleep anywhere, and speak any language spoken to her in person by watching faces, a skill that astonishes Palamedes and helps the household navigate a refugee city full of languages and suspicion.

The chapter widens to the world around them: refugees from many planets are crowded onto three planets, resettlement is a constant anxiety, and everyone considers this planet the worst. Nona lives on the thirtieth floor of an unhappy building in an unhappy city where people say one can outrun the zombies but not forever. Words like zombies, necromancers, and necromancy are forbidden around her, and Nona, approaching her six-month birthday, feels grateful for her life with the others while sensing it is greedy to expect much more.