Talasyn, still agitated from the fruitless Kesathese sweep and her argument with Alaric, plans to sneak out of the Roof of Heaven to visit her Sardovian comrades on Sigwad. She changes into inconspicuous clothing and maps an escape route through Alaric's wing, intending to borrow an airship from a discreet dugout proprietor in the city. However, upon stepping into the orchid garden, she runs directly into Alaric, who is standing outside her door getting fresh air. He demands to know where she is going, suspicious she may be preparing an attack. Thinking quickly, Talasyn claims she is headed to the night market because she is hungry. Alaric accepts the excuse but insists on accompanying her to verify her story, forcing her to abandon her real mission.

Together they rappel down the palace walls and make their way into Eskaya's bustling night market. For Alaric, the experience is disorienting and novel—he has never been anonymous in a crowd before, never walked among common people without his crown or mask. Talasyn guides him to a quiet food stall where they eat pork stew with rice and drink sugarcane juice. At the next table, a group of drunk Nenavarene men loudly plot to storm the palace and kill the Kesathese to rescue their Lachis'ka. Their boisterous plans amuse Talasyn until one man remarks that the Lachis'ka is an outsider too, and that "outsiders deserve each other." Stung, Talasyn abruptly drags Alaric away.

Rather than returning to the palace, Talasyn leads Alaric on a winding path through quiet residential streets. She becomes acutely aware of having been holding his arm and lets go, flustered by the physical contact and by memories of their previous intimate moments. Overwhelmed, she fires her grappling hook and scales a six-story building, with Alaric climbing after her. Sitting on the rooftop with the lantern-lit city spread below, Talasyn is struck by a painful sense of not belonging—not in Nenavar, not in Sardovia, nowhere. She is moved to ask Alaric why he spared her life multiple times during the Hurricane Wars: at Frostplum, at Lasthaven, and when the Heartland fell.

Alaric admits he was curious when they first met—he had never faced a Lightweaver before and wanted to see what she was made of. At Lasthaven, he felt it would have been "unceremonious" for her to die that way. Talasyn finds she understands this sentiment, recognizing their rivalry as something uniquely theirs. Fireworks celebrating their betrothal burst overhead. Alaric remarks that all the cities on the Continent will one day look as prosperous as Eskaya, prompting Talasyn to counter that the Allfold's cities could already have thrived if Kesath hadn't invaded. Their exchange escalates: Alaric criticizes Sardovia for mistreating its people, and Talasyn passionately invokes the battlefields and destroyed villages she witnessed, declaring that her loyalty was to the fallen. Alaric, visibly affected, admits he dislikes thinking about what she endured, even as his allegiance remains with his nation. Talasyn calls him a hypocrite but feels something stir at his concern for her suffering. He asks whether their recent accord during aethermancy practice meant nothing; she insists she will still work with him but will never accept the Night Empire's narrative of liberation. Alaric releases her, and they descend the building and return to the palace in silence, unable to share in the festive mood of the city around them.