Rune and Gideon approach the yellow house to continue their plan to rescue Meadow. Before leaving the trees, Rune enchants both of their jackets with Witch’s Armor to repel attacks, but she secretly also places a Beguile spell on herself to make others more receptive to her. At the front entrance, a young guard named Edmund refuses Gideon’s claim that they have come to collect the witch’s child without papers, so Rune improvises by pretending to injure her ankle and flirting with Edmund until he carries her inside.

Once Edmund leaves her in a parlor to fetch help, Rune and Gideon slip into the house and head for the upper floors, where Rune believes the nursery is located. As they move through the halls, Gideon angrily challenges her for flirting with Edmund, and Rune fires back that his objection is hypocritical given his own work hunting witches. When Edmund nearly discovers them, Gideon pulls Rune into an empty library, forcing them to hide there until the hall clears.

While trapped in the library, their argument turns personal. Rune admits that Gideon’s reaction after they kissed on the ship made her feel monstrous and unwanted, while Gideon explains that his cruel words came when he was reeling from betrayal, heartbreak, and the revelation that she was both the Crimson Moth and secretly tied to his brother. Their resentment shifts into jealousy: Gideon confesses that watching Rune flirt with other men enrages him, and Rune admits she hated his closeness with Abbie and believes he lied about Abbie’s importance to him.

Pressed for the truth, Gideon says he did kiss Abbie, but only because he needed to test something, and he tells Rune he wished Abbie had been her. He also reveals that seeing Rune kiss Soren wounded him just as deeply, while Rune says she kissed Soren only to survive. As both recognize the compromises and lies they have endured, the confrontation turns into desire, and they kiss intensely. Gideon’s actions make unmistakably clear that Rune does not repulse him.

The moment changes when Rune touches Gideon’s scarred chest and feels the branded mark heating beneath his shirt. Gideon recoils in pain and finally explains the truth: Cressida cursed him, and skin-to-skin contact with Rune triggers the agony. His kiss with Abbie had been an experiment to learn whether the curse applied only to Rune. Realizing that any future between them is impossible under the curse, Rune is devastated, but the revelation also gives her a new purpose. By the end of the chapter, she silently resolves to find a way to break what Cressida has done.