The chapter opens with Darlington hauling Alex to Il Bastone after a trial with spirit hounds, chastising her to take Lethe’s work seriously. He insists she had been safe but stresses that danger is real around the societies and the Veil. He cites Lethe lore about standing guard against death and identifies the spirit hounds as protectors bound to Lethe.

Inside Il Bastone, Darlington explains that the house is heavily warded and that the Hutch rooms are also protected, recognizing Alex’s relief at the quiet. He clarifies Lethe’s role versus the secret societies—Lethe taps one Dante every three years—to which Alex responds with wary humor. He introduces her to a tense Pamela Dawes, who offers logistical support without warmth.

Darlington tours Alex through the house: the parlor, kitchen, training rooms, and the armory with its apothecary stores—bone dust, graveyard dirt, vials of Perdition Water—and artifacts like Cuthbert’s Pearls, the Revolution Clock, and the centerpiece, Hiram’s Crucible, a massive gold basin from Machu Picchu used to brew the Orozcerio that lets Lethe see Grays. He recounts Hiram Bingham’s theft of artifacts and how the crucible solved the elixir’s failures, though the elixir remains toxic and dangerous.

In Dante’s prepared quarters, Darlington asks when Alex first saw Grays. Alex recounts childhood encounters—an oblivious man in the street, an Ophelia-like woman from the Santa Monica Pier who followed her, Grays clustering around food—leading to school scrutiny and Child Protective Services after she mentioned seeing “things.” She confirms she survived the Cedros apartment massacre but cannot explain how; she and Hellie overdosed, and Hellie died, while five men were slain with brutal force. Darlington reflects on the case details and his suspicion that Alex knows more than she told police.

Seeking to offer wonder rather than interrogation, Darlington brings Alex to the armory and opens a mother-of-pearl inlaid box of address moths. At Alex’s insistence to exclude Dawes, she removes her shirt, revealing extensive tattoos. Despite her fear of butterflies (moths), Darlington places the moths along her arms and collarbones and speaks an incantation; the moths darken as they drink the ink, and Alex’s tattoos vanish, leaving only faint ridges.

Darlington explains the moths’ origin as secure couriers of text and notes that human saliva reverses their magic. Alex, awed by real magic, asks if there is more to see, and Darlington promises there is, if she allows him to show her. The scene ends with him remembering this moment months later as a naïve misreading of who Alex truly was.