Iris arrived home to find her mother passed out on the sofa amid cigarettes, burnt upholstery, and nearly spent candles. She quietly cleaned the flat, laundered clothes in the building’s common area despite the cold water and her raw hands, and ate a meager tin of green beans before turning to her typewriter.

Determined to address the stranger who had replied to her wardrobe-letter, Iris typed a sharp note demanding to know how many of her letters the person had received and whether they regularly read others’ post. She slid the page beneath her wardrobe door, invoking the same old magic that had previously carried her letters away.

In a parallel scene, Roman Kitt, reading in his family’s sentient, magic-touched mansion, noticed Iris’s new letter appear. He reflected on the house’s peculiar comforts and mischief, and on how he had recognized Iris as the author of the letters to Forest by her job and writing style. Though he had initially thrown her first letter into a dustbin, he had since saved all of them in a shoebox and often reread them, moved by her voice and vulnerability.

Roman wrestled with the ethics of revealing himself, fearing Iris’s embarrassment and the loss of his tactical advantage at work. He chose instead to respond anonymously, sending a curt line about picking up stray papers in his room. When Iris retorted, asking him to be a “lamb” and return her previous letters, he admitted he could not.

Iris replied that she would stop writing to spare him and his floor, effectively ending the correspondence. Rather than accept the reprieve, Roman confessed—without revealing his identity—that he wanted her to continue, proposing they keep their names secret and acknowledging the magic connecting their doors. He closed by assuring her, “I’ll gladly read whatever you write.”