Sciona walks through Tiran feeling that the whole city runs on blood. Now that she understands magic as siphoned life from beyond the barrier, every train, factory, and blinking tower feels complicit. She climbs the stairs to Trethellyn Hall instead of taking the magical lift, unwilling to spend more life for convenience, and goes straight to Archmage Bringham’s office.

In private, Sciona urgently tells Bringham what she has learned: her visions were real, the Otherrealm is the land of the Kwen, and Tiran’s magic kills people beyond the barrier. Bringham does not deny it. Instead, he admits that the explanation about a Sabernyn curse was only a cover story and confirms that the High Magistry does not speak openly about the true nature of the Otherrealm, even though senior mages know.

As the conversation continues, Bringham reveals that the knowledge is widespread among long-serving highmages and city officials. He defends the system as necessary for Tiran’s prosperity, safety, and progress, and he frames the suffering of the Kwen as God’s will and the consequence of their ancestors’ refusal to submit. Sciona argues that Tiran created the Kwen’s devastation, that Blight is caused by human choices rather than divine judgment, and that her improved mapping could help avoid killing people, but Bringham rejects her moral reasoning and urges her to stop questioning what mages are meant to accept.

Sciona realizes that Bringham’s kindness has always existed alongside full knowledge of mass death, and that the Magistry’s heroism is built on lies. Because Thomil warned her this would happen, Sciona hides her true reaction and pretends to accept Bringham’s logic. She asks for the rest of the week off before her demonstration, and Bringham agrees, but he also orders that Thomil be dismissed as mentally unstable so that what he witnessed in Sciona’s lab will never be believed. Sciona conceals her alarm and declines a replacement assistant, determined to prepare in secret.

After leaving, Sciona rejects Bringham’s demand that she lay down logic before God, reasoning that obedience has never been the path open to a woman like her. Back at her cleaned laboratory, Jerrin Mordra awkwardly checks on her and apologizes for past unkindness. Sciona, already thinking ahead, tells Jerrin to use his family influence to get away from magic and politics while he still can. By the chapter’s end, Sciona’s despair has hardened into purpose: she will use the coming presentation to show Tiran the truth and unleash what she privately thinks of as Hellfire.