On her way to the Oath Gazette, Iris Winnow fixated on the revelation that the reply to her wardrobe letter was not from Forest. Distracted, she stepped into the tramway and was yanked back by Roman Kitt, narrowly avoiding being hit. Irritated and embarrassed, Iris rebuffed Roman’s admonishment and rode the lift with him, where he pressed her about late work and possible special assignments from Zeb Autry.

During the ride, Roman implied the competition for the columnist post must be fair, while Iris jabbed back by quoting his prior dismissal of her education, then escaped to the newsroom. Later at lunch, Iris asked Sarah Prindle if she was happy at the Gazette and what dreams she once had; Sarah admitted an old desire to work at a museum and shared basic lore about the gods and their factions, the Skywards and Underlings.

Iris confided to Sarah that the Inkridden Tribune had reported monsters at the front and described the image she saw. Sarah identified the creatures as eithrals from mythology but warned that Zeb would disapprove of Iris pursuing the story. Roman overheard part of their conversation at the doorway, heightening Iris’s sense that he suspected her plans.

Ignoring potential repercussions, Iris left the office for the public library’s restricted stacks to investigate eithrals and the gods. She reviewed ancient tomes describing the Skywards (Enva’s line) and Underlings (Dacre’s line), once a hundred gods now largely destroyed, with five entombed across Cambria: Dacre in the west, Enva in the east, Mir in the north, Alva in the south, and Luz in Central Borough.

Iris noted that despite Dacre having ignited the war by burning Sparrow, Enva had not confronted him directly, instead inspiring enlistment through music. Seeking the roots of their feud and information on eithrals, she found crucial pages missing. Mentions of Dacre were sparse and disconnected from Enva, and there was no substantive detail on eithrals’ origins or control.

Confronted with torn-out pages and gaps in the record, Iris concluded that knowledge about Dacre and his motives had been deliberately removed. She left the research session chilled by the possibility that someone was erasing the past as the war escalated.