Over the next three months, Gideon sees very little of Harrowhark. Instead, Gideon spends six hours a day being retrained by Aiglamene to fight as a formal cavalier with a rapier, learning footwork, parries, and posture while being repeatedly disarmed. When Gideon tries to avoid wearing Ninth House face paint, Crux punishes her by cutting the heat to her cell, forcing Gideon to comply.

Harrowhark mostly shuts herself in the library to study necromancy, growing thinner and harsher. On the rare occasions Harrowhark observes Gideon, Harrowhark criticizes Gideon’s progress or makes Gideon redo her paint. While made to shadow Harrowhark, Gideon overhears enough to understand that Harrowhark sees the Lyctoral summons as a competition and is less worried about soldiers or politicians than about a more intellectually dangerous House.

In the final week before departure, Gideon packs secondhand robes remade from Ortus’s belongings and secretly hides her beloved longsword in her trunk. Aiglamene gives Gideon an old black rapier and a set of bladed knuckles, explaining that Gideon has only reached the level of a poor cavalier but can survive if Gideon stays fluid, uses the offhand for support, and stops trying to block every blow.

On the last day, the diminished Ninth House gathers at the landing field to send Harrowhark away. Harrowhark announces that her parents will not appear because they have sealed themselves beyond the locked tomb passage in penitence until her return, and she appoints Crux and Aiglamene to rule in her absence. The shuttle arrives as Harrowhark addresses the House with sincere devotion and leads a prayer for the Ninth, the Lyctors, the Emperor, and her cavalier.

As Gideon prepares to board, Gideon notices Aiglamene’s salute and realizes she may never see her teacher or Drearburh again. Gideon unexpectedly cries, then transforms that grief into fierce satisfaction at leaving the Ninth behind. Once inside the shuttle, Gideon teases the tearful Harrowhark, and Harrowhark says she wants to watch Gideon die; Gideon answers that even if that happens, it will not happen in Drearburh.