Sciona brings a discarded spellograph home, and Alba happily repairs it in exchange for Sciona doing the dishes. While Alba works, Sciona reflects on how much Alba and Aunt Winny have quietly supported her life and ambitions. Afterward, Sciona goes out in her highmage robes to have copies made of Dermek’s laboratory keys, then returns to find the spellograph fully repaired.

Before taking the machine to her room, Sciona tells Alba and Aunt Winny that she is grateful she grew up with them rather than with her father. The moment reveals that she now values the freedom and love they gave her more than the status she once imagined a powerful father could have provided. Alone by candlelight, Sciona uses the repaired spellograph to begin an enormous, urgent spellweb, driven by memories of the Kwen’s suffering, Bringham’s refusal to act, and Renthorn’s assault. She works through the night and falls asleep at her desk.

When Alba wakes her after noon, Sciona gathers the huge mass of papers, packs the spellograph, and rushes out. She stops at the Magistry to return Dermek’s keys and leave him an anonymous warning not to send cleaning staff to the master spellographs on the evening of the third. Then she travels to the Kwen Quarter, where Carra lets her in with open hostility. During their tense conversation, Carra reveals that the city guards badly beat Thomil after Sciona publicly fired him, and she rejects any attempt by Sciona to claim shared womanhood or grief. Still, the two begin to speak more honestly, and Sciona admits that Tiranish society harmed them both in connected ways.

When Thomil returns, he, Carra, and Sciona relocate to an empty house where Carra works, using it as a temporary hiding place. There, Sciona explains her new plan: she wants to use her spellwork to expose the Magistry’s crimes to the public. Thomil immediately calls the idea terrible, arguing that ordinary Tiranish citizens are unlikely to protect the Kwen and may instead cling harder to the system that gives them comfort and moral certainty. Sciona insists that the public, unlike the highmages, might be capable of reckoning with the truth if they are forced to face it together.

As they argue, Thomil reveals that Renthorn has long preyed on Kwen women working at the Magistry and once assaulted Thomil himself for interfering; other mages knew and ignored it. The revelation deepens Sciona’s understanding of how thoroughly the institution hides abuse in plain sight. Even after Thomil and Carra warn that exposing the truth could make life worse for the Kwen and get Sciona killed, Sciona says she will stop only if they truly forbid it. Thomil refuses to endorse the plan but does not stop her, and Sciona finally admits she also came because she has prepared a failsafe in case the public turns against her. The failsafe will require Thomil’s help, and she hints that it is violent enough that Carra will approve.