Roman Kitt anxiously awaited a response after Iris Winnow’s abrupt, misspelled message, fearing she had been harmed in an attack or captured. Unable to sleep, he reread Iris’s past letters and wandered the mansion until he found his grandmother awake in the kitchen. She invited him to talk, correctly guessed he was corresponding with Daisy Winnow’s granddaughter using the family typewriter, and revealed her own past friendship with Alouette Stone and Daisy, explaining their determination to keep the typewriters in their families.

As Roman listened, he felt the “invisible threads” connecting him to Iris. When pressed, he admitted sending Iris the second half of his grandmother’s myth. Nan challenged Roman to choose his own path rather than let his father dictate it, urging him to hold on to good things in dark times and to take risks for the light. After she departed, Roman returned to his room and finally received Iris’s brief morning note assuring him she was safe and headed back to the infirmary, with plans to send more soldier letters.

Relieved, Roman hurried off to work. The narrative then shifted to Avalon Bluff, where Marisol Torres enlisted Iris and Thea “Attie” Attwood to help till the B and B’s garden. They discovered gouge marks that Marisol identified as hound claw tracks, noting Dacre’s hounds sometimes trampled gardens during their nightly prowls. As they worked, Marisol shared that she plants annually because of her wife, Keegan, who travels for work and had once helped restore the garden; Marisol’s voice hinted that Keegan had been gone for some time.

That night, Iris wrote to her correspondent and asked if he would ever want to meet. He immediately agreed but pointed out the distance. Iris said she would return likely when the war ends and confessed she wanted to see and hear him; he replied that he wanted the same and suggested future activities in Oath, from researching myths together to visiting his grandmother or walking in the park, joking about whether he looked like a knight errant or a rogue. He promised to wait until she was ready.

The chapter closed with Iris receiving an official response regarding her brother. The letter confirmed that Forest M. Winnow enlisted nearly six months ago and is assigned to Second E Battalion, Fifth Landover Company under Captain Rena G. Griss, and advised her to contact the E Brigade command in Halethorpe. It cautioned that Southern Borough mail has been unreliable, which could explain the lack of news from Forest or his commanding officers.