As Kai and Paedyn move through the deserted edge of Dor toward the Sanctuary of Souls, tension hangs between them after their recent arguments. Kai tries to break the silence by commenting on Paedyn’s braid, then offers to fix it. Their teasing turns into jealousy when Paedyn assumes Kai must have braided other women’s hair, which prompts Kai to reveal that the only other person whose hair he braided was Ava, his younger sister.

While redoing Paedyn’s braid, Kai tells Paedyn about Ava for the first time. He explains that Ava was a secret royal child, born despite the danger to the queen’s health, and that the king hid both the queen’s weakness and Ava’s illness from the kingdom because he saw sick royals as a sign of weakness. Ava survived her birth but remained frail and died at four. Kai says he learned to braid hair because Ava was too weak to do her own, and he remembers sneaking her into the gardens once so she could enjoy a brief taste of freedom before she died.

Kai admits that Ava’s death still defines him and that even in death she remained hidden, buried beneath the willow tree where Paedyn once found him during the Trials. Paedyn realizes why that place mattered to him and responds with sympathy. Kai then deliberately lightens the mood by clarifying that he has never braided a lover’s hair, and the two briefly slip back into flirtation before continuing on and finding shelter for the night in a dark barn near the city’s edge.

In the hayloft, their conversation turns serious again. Paedyn admits she keeps hoping Lenny or someone else still searching will find her, and she bitterly questions whether Kai has killed Mixes as well as Ordinaries. Kai calls Mixes a threat to Elites, while Paedyn argues that if everyone can live, the end of Elites should not matter. The argument leads Kai to question why Paedyn is an Ordinary if her mother was Ordinary and her father was a Healer, suggesting she should be a Mix; Paedyn fiercely defends her parents and says survival left her no time to wonder. They end the night with dark humor about sleep, violence, and the risk of falling from the loft before planning to steal a horse and head for the Sanctuary at dawn.