In London in 1827, Addie spends her days drifting through the National Gallery, treating its rooms like a home. She counts the works that carry traces of her—six pieces in this collection—and studies how artists have unknowingly folded her into portraits and sculptures, including echoes of Matteo’s early sketching in later masterpieces.

As the gallery nears closing, Addie lingers before her favorite painting of a girl facing a mirror, her features blurred except for freckles in the reflection. Luc appears behind her without warning, and Addie realizes he is not bound to visit only on the anniversary of their bargain; his absence and presence have always been choices. He dismisses her attempts to leave lasting marks, insisting her echoes do not matter, and his mood turns sharp and violent.

Addie refuses to cower and provokes him, arguing that he is lonely and that her curse may also guarantee him companionship—someone who has known him longer than any mortal he bargains with. Enraged, Luc pins Addie to the wall and then grabs her wrist, pulling her through the dark as punishment and proof that she does not truly understand him.

Addie lands in a sick, cluttered room strewn with sheet music, where an aging, frantic Ludwig van Beethoven pleads in German for more time. Luc refuses new bargains and demands Beethoven surrender his soul. When the composer resists, Luc “unfolds” into something monstrous—more god and night than man—and forcibly tears Beethoven’s soul from his chest, leaving him dead and empty-eyed.

Luc turns that inhuman presence on Addie, and she feels real fear for the first time in a long while. As he reforms into his familiar shape, Luc brushes Addie’s cheek and asks if they are “so different now.” Before Addie can answer, Luc opens the wall behind her and drops her back into the world, leaving her alone beside the Thames amid laughter, lights, and distant song.