As the Armistice is announced, crowds pour into the streets of Paris to celebrate the end of the war. Charlotte, worn down by years of suffering around her, feels a palpable release, letting the city’s joy wrap around her and lift her spirits for the first time in years.

Sabine’s mood improves as well, whether because of the victory or because Charlotte has become better company again. The couple moves through this brief season of relief with renewed closeness, Charlotte marveling at how beauty and resilience rise in the wake of horror.

Amid the upswing, Sabine begins to go off alone at night to hunt. Each time, Sabine returns bright-eyed and humming with life, bringing a small, precise gift for Charlotte—a sunflower, a silver comb, a first edition of Camilla—tokens that prove Sabine knows Charlotte’s tastes and history intimately.

These gestures reinforce Charlotte’s sense that Sabine still understands “every inch” of her mind and heart, reassuring Charlotte that their bond endures. Charlotte chooses to accept the gifts and the glow as signs of care, focusing on healing.

In a reflective coda, the narration notes how easy it is only in retrospect to see “the cracks,” how they spread, and how, in the moment, Charlotte’s impulse was to smooth each line and keep the surface whole. The chapter closes with this tension between present relief and the foreshadowed fractures beneath.