After We Suffer's meeting breaks up, Crown escorts Camilla, Pyrrha, and Nona out. Nona identifies the hostile bodyguard as Pash by the way Pash moves, unsettling Crown and making Camilla watch Nona closely. Pyrrha is taken away to have her collar removed, reminding Nona to stuff toilet paper under her shirt as a precaution before Nona follows Camilla and Crown.

While Nona is in the bathroom, Nona overhears Camilla insist on seeing a woman Crown has been caring for. Crown warns that the woman is unstable and difficult to move, but Camilla says she can help. Camilla, Nona, and Crown descend six floors into a dark underground section of the facility, where Crown explains that Captain Judith Deuteros is not part of the negotiation but is Blood of Eden's “ticket out of here.”

In Judith's bare sickroom, Camilla immediately assesses Judith's condition and questions Crown about hydration, feeding, nursing, kidney function, blood pressure, and medication. Judith appears severely wasted and ill. Nona hears Judith speak in strange, accusatory phrases about dust, murder, vengeance, a “green thing,” and being seen; then Judith convulses. Camilla takes control of the emergency, but the manner of the intervention reveals that Palamedes is currently using Camilla's body.

Crown admits she has suspected Palamedes and Camilla's arrangement for a long time because Camilla stopped seeming so bereaved after meeting Harrowhark. Palamedes tends Judith, who briefly becomes lucid enough to state her name, rank, House, status, and dead cavalier, then relapses into pleas for Crown and Camilla to claim coercion and return to the Cohort. Judith also accuses Blood of Eden of keeping her alive so she can operate their stele and bring Cohort blood onto her hands.

Judith's ravings turn toward Nona, whom Judith seems to call Ninth and Reverend Daughter, asking about the Tomb, mercy, masters, cavaliers, waves, hunger, and the green-and-breathing thing. Palamedes puts Judith to sleep, then yields control back to Camilla when his time is up. Nona matter-of-factly updates Camilla, and Crown realizes Palamedes can supersede Camilla and that Camilla is absent when he does.

Camilla challenges Crown over whether she will report the secret, but Crown swears she will not. Camilla asks Crown to leave Blood of Eden and return with them before the negotiator arrives, but Crown refuses, citing Judith and her own entanglement. Their unresolved grief and mistrust surface, especially Camilla's anger that Crown was “part of the lie.” As they return upstairs, Crown warns Camilla not to trust Pyrrha too much. Nona asks about the words Judith spoke, but Crown says Judith never spoke when Nona entered the room; Judith only screamed, revealing that Nona heard something no one else heard.