Feyre walks through the Rainbow during Velaris’s first snow, intending to shop for Solstice gifts. The bustling artists’ quarter is bright with decorations, but repaired doors and windows remind Feyre of Hybern’s attack, when blood ran through the streets and she fought to defend the city. Being recognized in a gallery unsettles Feyre, so she moves on despite wanting to enter.

As Feyre reflects on her duties as High Lady, she thinks about the weekly public audiences she now shares with Rhysand, the growing paperwork, and the charities they support for Solstice, including displaced humans and Illyrian war widows. She also considers Velaris’s poorer blocks, Nesta’s choice to live in one, and Feyre’s own donations toward rebuilding the Rainbow. The lingering ruins make clear that the city’s physical and emotional scars remain.

Feyre stops near a ruined building and is approached by Ressina, an artist Feyre remembers from the attack as someone who defended civilians with a rusted pipe. Ressina tells Feyre that the people from the ruined house survived, but that Polina, the owner of a boarded-up gallery across the street, did not. Ressina gently challenges Feyre’s distance from the artists’ community, telling Feyre that every door is open to her not just as High Lady, but as one of them.

Ressina introduces herself and offers Feyre companionship and a place among a weekly group of painters. Ressina also tells Feyre that the artists remember Feyre coming to fight for them and are grateful, even though Feyre still feels the lives lost outweigh what she saved. When Feyre asks what Ressina’s group paints, Ressina answers that they paint “the things that need telling,” giving Feyre a possible path back toward art and community.

Later, Feyre shops in the Palace of Thread and Jewels, where Mor joins her. Together they choose an expensive, fiery jeweled gift for Amren, whose sacrifice in the war and quiet relationship with Varian remain on Feyre’s mind. Feyre also asks what to buy the others, and Mor jokes about Cassian’s love of knives and Azriel’s discomfort with attention, while Feyre carefully avoids pushing Mor about the private truth Mor revealed during the war.

As they continue through the crowded Solstice market, Feyre and Mor discuss Viviane and the Winter Court’s celebrations, noting that Mor’s rekindled friendship may help strengthen ties between the Night and Winter Courts. Mor then reveals that Feyre, Mor, and Rhysand must visit the Hewn City that night as a Solstice tradition meant to maintain goodwill after the war. Mor’s real reason is more urgent: Eris will be there, and Mor wants to see how close he has become with her father, Keir.