After deciding to betray Harrow, Gideon goes alone to the Eighth House quarters and finds Colum doing domestic work. Colum makes Gideon surrender her rapier and knuckle-knife before entering, promising there is nothing inside to hurt Gideon. The Eighth rooms are unnervingly clean and austere, dominated by a portrait of the Emperor.

Silas appears with wet hair, and Colum quietly tends to him while Silas explains why Gideon has been summoned. Silas comments on Gideon’s mother and reveals that Sister Glaurica spoke to him as a revenant. Gideon learns that Glaurica and Ortus died when their shuttle exploded on the way back to the Ninth, the same shuttle Gideon had meant to steal.

Silas presses Gideon about why Gideon and Harrow alone survived their generation. Gideon repeats the official story that vent bacteria killed the Ninth children, but Silas insists that explanation cannot account for immunoefficient teenagers dying. Silas suggests the Reverend Father and Mother may have killed two hundred children, tying the possibility to the Ninth House’s corrupt devotion to the Locked Tomb and to the shuttle explosion that killed Glaurica and Ortus.

Silas then reveals his real immediate goal: he no longer believes any of the heirs should become Lyctors, especially not Harrow, and he demands Gideon’s keys. Because Gideon has already been disarmed, Silas threatens to challenge her for them. Colum objects because he swore on his honour that no violence would happen there, but Silas dismisses any oath made to someone from the Ninth.

The argument exposes a deep fracture between Silas and Colum. Colum insists that his honour is not optional and reveals the extreme preparation that made him Silas’s cavalier, including years of training and biological conditioning for Silas’s needs. Colum chooses his oath over Silas’s command, returns Gideon’s weapons, and warns Gideon to leave, saying that the next time they meet one of them will likely die. Gideon escapes while Silas remains silent.