Maddie spends the afternoon in the dower house with Circe, Finnie, Loretta, and Meeta while they mind the children, but she is only half present. Two days have passed since Apollo exploded at her and then disappeared, and Maddie cannot stop replaying both her own mistake and the cruelty of his response. Because she immediately admitted she was wrong, Maddie decides she should not have to chase Apollo again to repair what he broke, and she begins to recognize that excusing his verbal attacks would repeat the same pattern of tolerated abuse she escaped with Pol. She also worries about Christophe, knowing he is hurting because of her and feeling helpless to fix it.

As the women talk, Circe explains how she regained her magic. She tells them that Valentine moved her, Lahn, Zahnin, and Bain to Lunwyn after sensing Maddie was in danger, and that Cora, Tor, and the rest of Circe's large guard force will follow later. Circe then describes the cave ritual itself: for several days she and Lahn had to solve riddles, survive deadly trials, and reach the pool at sunset, passing skeletons and fresh corpses left by those who failed. Her story confirms both how dangerous the magic was and how formidable Lahn remains, which briefly distracts Maddie from her own problems.

The mood shifts when Hans arrives intent on speaking privately with Loretta. Loretta resists him with sharp sarcasm, but Hans refuses to retreat, takes Isis from her arms, and drags Loretta from the room to continue their argument alone. Afterward, Meeta bluntly remarks on her own satisfying relationship with Ruben, which amuses the others but does little to lift Maddie's mood. Looking out at the winter landscape, Maddie realizes that despite all Apollo has given her, his anger can still make her feel as powerless as ever because he can withdraw everything the moment he chooses.

Lahn later enters, dotes openly on his daughter Isis, and delivers a message from Élan, who wants Maddie at a party in her chambers. Maddie accepts, leaves the dower house, and rides with Zahnin to Karsvall. At the door, Zahnin unexpectedly speaks in broken English about his own wife and insists that silence between partners is "bad." He tells Maddie that Apollo is suffering too and orders her not to keep thinking about the situation but to talk to her warrior, giving Maddie a blunt, compassionate push toward confrontation.

Inside Karsvall, Maddie avoids Apollo's study and hurries upstairs to Élan, whose delight at her arrival immediately softens her. During the tea party, Maddie falls into caring for Élan and reflects again that Apollo's loving side cannot erase his worst behavior if she keeps allowing it. Then she spots Christophe briefly watching from the doorway before he vanishes without speaking. Maddie takes his disappearance as proof that Apollo has not healed that wound either, so she sets aside her pain and chooses to give Élan the happy attention the child wanted from her.