As thundercracks intensify over the hot, rainless city, Nona delivers Honesty’s note to We Suffer. We Suffer immediately restarts Operation Lock and Key, deploying Blood of Eden cells to extract the captive Sixth, even though the operation now begins by rescuing House prisoners from another BOE wing.

During the truck ride, Pyrrha and We Suffer argue over Commander Wake. Pash threatens Pyrrha, but Pyrrha reveals that Wake carried a childhood photo of Pash and spoke of Pash with fierce pride. Pash, shaken, confirms that Wake was her aunt, though Pash remains hostile toward Pyrrha and the House-aligned passengers.

The convoy comes under strange bombardment. Pyrrha looks outside and realizes the first wave of Heralds has arrived: Varun the Eater, Number Seven, is attacking the planet. Pyrrha explains that only a true, experienced Lyctor could draw a Resurrection Beast and its Heralds away, but Gideon the First is dead and no such rescue is available.

When the Captain begins trembling, Crown tries to steady her, but Nona suddenly takes Crown’s sword and climbs onto the truck roof. Nona sees mucus-coated pods falling from the sky and erupting across the streets, buildings, and ocean. Furious, Nona shouts upward that the entity promised not to do anything weird.

The Captain, apparently possessed by Varun, appears on another truck and demands that Nona pursue a fleeing “him.” Nona refuses, saying she loves New Rho and cannot accept destruction on this scale. Varun speaks through the Captain about grief, revenge, and poisoned justice, while the Captain withers under the strain.

Nona pleads for mercy, naming the children, Camilla, Palamedes, Pyrrha, and even the Captain as people who do not deserve this harm. Nona says she is ready to die and asks Varun to wait and help her because she may soon be different. The assault seems to lessen, the Captain returns to herself and calls Nona Harrowhark, and Nona finally admits that she is not Harrow and never was.