Kai spends another night in Dor searching alone for Paedyn after several fruitless days of checking streets, doors, and hiding places and asking after the Silver Savior. Her ability to avoid him frustrates him, but he also recognizes a shameful sense of relief that he has not found her. At the same time, Dor leaves him uneasy because, away from Elites, his power is limited and he feels unusually exposed and vulnerable.

When someone reaches for his coin pouch in the dark, Kai briefly wonders if Paedyn has found him first. He reacts by hooking the thief's ankle and knocking the person down, only to discover that the pickpocket is not Paedyn but a young girl. When the girl raises a knife at him, Kai recognizes both the engraved weapon and the girl herself: Abigail, the red-haired child he once banished along with the family who sheltered her. He is shocked and relieved to learn she survived the Scorches.

Abigail immediately assumes Kai may have come to kill her, a response that forces him to confront how thoroughly he is seen as a killer. Kai tells Abigail that he is really looking for Paedyn and asks whether she has seen or heard anything about the woman on Dor's wanted posters. Abigail says she has not, then explains that she is hurrying to an underground match where betting is high because a new favorite has drawn a crowd.

Kai follows Abigail after she warns him not to steal back the coins she took because she needs money for her mother. On the way, he lightly criticizes her pickpocketing technique and advises that the best thieves distract their targets first. His own words pull his thoughts back to Paedyn, the thief who outmaneuvered him most completely. When Abigail leads him to a hidden cellar entrance, Kai is struck by how much she resembles a younger version of Paedyn in her red hair, fierce survival instinct, and stolen knife, and he is unsettled by the possibility that he has helped create another girl forced into the same kind of life.