After an unexpectedly warm and funny date, Maddie and Apollo return to their room at the lodge. Maddie nervously asks for the kind of goodnight kiss she would expect in her own world, and Apollo eagerly obliges. The moment quickly turns passionate, but it is interrupted when three armed men burst into the sitting room and attack.

Apollo orders Maddie to run, but Maddie refuses to abandon him. Because Apollo is outnumbered and initially armed only with knives, Maddie runs to the bedroom, grabs Apollo's saber, and throws it to him. Maddie then keeps helping by striking one attacker with the flat of the saber and smashing a lamp over another man's head, giving Apollo the openings he needs to kill two attackers and leave one alive. Afterward, Apollo angrily scolds Maddie for staying in danger, but his anger is driven by fear that she could have been killed.

As staff are summoned and the surviving attacker is bound, Apollo searches the bodies and finds a coded note. Maddie studies it and realizes the lower line refers to Apollo and Maddie at Treeburn Lodge in Vasterhague, while the upper line points to Christophe and Elan in Karsvall with ten men assigned to them. When Apollo confirms the danger by questioning the captive, Maddie and Apollo immediately dress for the cold and leave at once.

Maddie and Apollo ride through the night and the following day, changing horses repeatedly in order to reach Karsvall as fast as possible. Maddie is consumed by fear for Apollo's children and feels Apollo's own terror beneath his fury. When they arrive, they find the estate lit up, guarded, and surrounded by bodies in the snow. Achilles tells Apollo that the children are alive, and Apollo rushes Maddie to Elan's room.

Christophe is physically unharmed and holding his sister, but Elan is shaking with terror, making it clear that one of the attackers reached her. Maddie is overwhelmed by protective rage and runs outside to find the remaining captives being interrogated in a gardener's shack by Apollo's men. Maddie threatens one man with a knife and demands answers about what was done to Elan, but Apollo takes over, kills one captive to prove he will not hesitate, and turns to the other for information. When the man still resists, Apollo orders Achilles to take Maddie away, then calls for hedge clippers, showing that the attack on his children has pushed him into ruthless retaliation.