Gideon continues living under Harrow’s order of silence while Canaan House settles into uneasy routines. Teacher cheerfully praises the Houses mingling, though most participants still avoid Gideon. Gideon observes the other Houses from the edges: the Second remain soldierly, the Third orbit Coronabeth, the Fourth stay near the Fifth, the Sixth and Seventh are often absent, and the Eighth treat Gideon as contaminating. Harrow decorates the Ninth quarters with bones and answers Gideon’s complaint only by calling it ambiance.

Gideon spends time training, exploring, and occasionally helping Dulcinea Septimus, who treats Gideon with friendly curiosity rather than fear. Gideon also reflects on the Cohort glory she once imagined for herself and keeps up the physical regimen meant to get her there. Harrow remains almost entirely unseen, but Gideon eventually notices that Harrow’s bed, laundry, and paint supplies have not changed for over twenty-four hours. Gideon concludes that Harrow is probably impaired rather than absent by choice, and reluctantly begins searching Canaan House.

After a fruitless search through public areas, the dock, the terrace, and the eastern wing, Gideon almost gives up, then forces open a swollen door near a broken lift. The route takes Gideon through a caution-marked corridor, under a tarp, onto a crumbling terrace, and up an exterior stairway into a dark old lift lobby. There Gideon overhears an unfamiliar necromancer and cavalier discussing impossible age readings in Canaan House: parts of the building seem thousands of years apart, suggesting either scavenged construction or deliberate deception.

Gideon descends and finds the pair in front of a huge metal hatch. The cavalier, Camilla, sees the skull-painted Ninth figure and attacks, forcing Gideon into a fast, dangerous fight that exhilarates her. The necromancer, Palamedes, orders Camilla to disengage and raises a powerful barrier that briefly makes Gideon feel as if her heart and hand are failing. Palamedes then reveals that Harrow was below the hatch the previous night, that Harrow’s blood is on the floor, and that Harrow has probably not resurfaced. Gideon breaks her silence and demands his help.

Palamedes uses his key ring to open the hatch, and Gideon, Palamedes, and Camilla descend into a sterile, hidden installation beneath Canaan House. They pass through a nonagonal junction marked for laboratories, preservation, mortuary, work rooms, and sanitiser, where an old whiteboard still reads that the work is finished. Following fresh and drying blood into Sanitiser, Gideon finds Harrow curled inside a bone cocoon. Palamedes examines Harrow and explains that Harrow is not visibly wounded; she appears dehydrated and weakened from overexertion, blood loss, and lack of food and water.

Gideon carries the unconscious Harrow back up while Palamedes and Camilla help secure the hatch. Palamedes tells Gideon to give Harrow liquids, food, and sleep, and says Harrow was likely in the library because Camilla noticed that Harrow clinks when she walks. Before leaving, Palamedes warns Gideon that the area below is unbelievably dangerous and that the Ninth should stop splitting its forces. When Palamedes claims to know this because he is the greatest necromancer of his generation, the apparently unconscious Harrow wakes enough to object.