Nona wakes in the back of a truck in a dark tunnel, surrounded by cables, spotlights, distant gunfire, and the smell of oil. Kiriona Gaia is lying nearby and immediately asks where “she” is, implying Harrow; when Nona cannot answer, Kiriona asks whether Nona loves her. Pyrrha interrupts and takes Nona away, explaining that Heralds have pinned everyone in the tunnel and can only be fought at long range.

Pyrrha carries Nona because Nona’s legs have gone numb and she can no longer walk. When Pyrrha nearly calls Nona by another name, Nona begs not to be made to remember, and a cruel voice from within Nona lashes out at Pyrrha for playing at family. Nona is horrified by the outburst, but Pyrrha remains with her and explains that something on Nona’s neck is meant to keep Nona in the body as long as possible.

Pyrrha brings Nona to the rescued Sixth House people from the megatrucks, many weakened and blind-eyed. Palamedes, inhabiting Ianthe Naberius’s body while Camilla sits gravely ill in a wheelchair, explains that the Sixth has been found and that the trapped group cannot rely on necromancy because the Sixth are too exhausted. With Heralds outside, limited ammunition, and no safe exit, Palamedes proposes loading everyone back into the megatruck and escaping through the River toward the Nine Houses and then the hidden Sixth House.

Pyrrha and We Suffer challenge Palamedes’s plan because Palamedes is not a Lyctor and cannot safely travel the River or defend against ghosts. Palamedes says he is ready to gamble, but Pyrrha realizes Camilla and Palamedes intend something irreversible. She pleads with them not to do it, warning that what earlier Lyctors did was not beautiful or loving, but Camilla and Palamedes insist their choice is different.

Before the assembled witnesses, Camilla and Palamedes affirm their love, relief, and consent to end their separate lives together. Palamedes gives Camilla powder from her knife handle, cuts her finger, and tells her not to look back; Camilla then bursts into white flame, is consumed, and reappears whole, changed, and no longer simply Camilla or Palamedes. The new person comforts Nona with a birthday handkerchief, then offers Ianthe and Naberius Tern a chance to join them in another way; Ianthe rejects the offer with a joke and abandons the body, leaving it empty.