After midnight in the royal apartments, Kel watches Conor study maps and press on despite exhaustion. Conor tells Kel that he has asked Lin Caster to recreate the medicine Fausten gave King Markus because Markus has worsened without it. Conor admits he does not expect his old father back, but hopes for a king who can speak and reason, since hiding Markus weakens House Aurelian.

Conor asks Kel to impersonate him at Princess Anjelica’s welcome banquet while Conor secretly meets Lin. The next evening, Kel, dressed as Conor, escorts Anjelica into Queen Lilibet’s lavish outdoor celebration in the Queen’s Garden. Anjelica accepts Conor’s absence calmly, though her brothers seem less pleased, and Kel remains conscious that the entire event is a public performance meant to reassure the nobility.

Once seated apart from the guests, Anjelica asks Kel for a secret favor: she needs help arranging a discreet meeting in the city with someone who claims they can make the pirate Aden leave her alone forever. Kel warns that secrecy risks scandal and danger, but Anjelica threatens to slip out of Marivent alone if he refuses. Because a caught princess would damage the Kutani alliance Conor needs, Kel agrees to consider helping and tells Anjelica not to act without him.

The nobles then approach Anjelica with gifts and greetings, and Kel quietly briefs her on each one. Artal Gremont behaves offensively, while Antonetta startles Anjelica by saying she once believed she would marry Conor but now sees Anjelica is destined to be queen. After Antonetta leaves, Anjelica asks whether Antonetta can be trusted, and Kel gives Anjelica a cynical lesson in Castellane politics: nobles may be relied on only to seek power and proximity to the throne.

Meanwhile, Lin is brought secretly to the Marivent library, where Conor has gathered food and books for their research. They discover in Queen Morwenna Aurelian’s old flower book that blackroot is poisonous and was once believed to suppress magic. Lin suggests Fausten’s medicine may have been meant to treat or control a magical illness rather than a natural one.

Lin notices a fresh hand-shaped burn on Conor’s wrist and realizes King Markus likely caused it with his touch. Conor reveals that Fausten warned Markus before dying that his sickness would worsen and shows Lin strips of parchment covered in symbols from Fausten’s lockbox. Lin recognizes that the symbols are meaningful, though she cannot read them, and asks to take them to someone who can. Conor agrees to let her investigate and to arrange another examination of Markus, but their fragile intimacy breaks as fireworks signal the banquet’s end and Lin leaves him alone in the tower.