After Sciona’s mapping spell ends and the image of the dead coastal girl vanishes, other mages break into the laboratory and bring Sciona to an empty classroom. Sciona is too shocked to do more than replay what she saw and connect ordinary comforts like tea and hot water to hidden magical violence. When Archmage Bringham questions her gently, Sciona confesses that she believes she killed a real girl and that the Otherrealm is not another plane at all, but the Kwen and lands beyond Tiran.

Sciona becomes physically ill while trying to explain herself. As a young Kwen janitor cleans up her vomit, Sciona cannot stop imagining him being torn apart by magic as well. Bringham then offers an alternative explanation: he thinks Sciona has triggered an old curse, the sort of malicious illusion left behind by earlier mages, especially the infamous Sabernyn. He explains that Sabernyn hid curses in texts, spellographs, and magical work to frighten later highmages away from dangerous research, and he insists that no mapping spell has ever produced such a lifelike image, so what Sciona saw must have been false.

For a moment, Bringham’s explanation gives Sciona hope, but she cannot make herself believe it. Sciona privately reviews the evidence: she used two different modern spellographs, had already checked for curses after an earlier explosion, and wrote the relevant spellwork herself rather than copying old compositions. She also knows that the image she saw included details Sabernyn should never have known. When Bringham adds that Thomil was likely especially shaken because he is Kwen, Sciona defends Thomil’s intelligence, though she does not repeat Thomil’s accusation that Tiranish magic is fueled by stolen lives. Bringham tells Sciona to rest, apologize to Thomil, and prepare for her upcoming presentation.

Sciona leaves the university numb, unaffected by colleagues mocking her breakdown. The train ride home becomes another reminder that all Tiranish comfort may be powered by blood. At home, Aunt Winny welcomes her with immediate concern, and Sciona breaks down completely, asking whether she is a good person before collapsing into her aunt’s embrace. She spends the evening weeping not only for the girl she believes she killed, but also for her entire life’s work and for every spell she has ever cast, now reinterpreted as participation in mass harm.

Late that night, Sciona’s despair turns suicidal. Standing on her fourth-floor windowsill, she reasons that her death would scarcely matter because the Magistry would simply replace her with someone less efficient, causing even more suffering. Enraged, Sciona accuses God and the Founding Mages of knowing the truth about magic’s cost all along and condemns the whole system that shaped her beliefs. As Sciona leans forward, ready to jump, Alba grabs her nightdress, drags her back inside, and holds her on the floor while Sciona screams under the weight of an unbearable reality.