After firing Gideon’s pistol, Rune realizes she has shot Ava through the head, not Gideon. Seeing the Binder mark on Gideon’s chest, Rune understands that Ava had forced him to strangle her and that Ava’s death ended the spell because Ava had not cast Everlasting to preserve it. Even so, Rune keeps the gun trained on Gideon, knowing that with the command broken he may now choose to kill her of his own will.

When Gideon reveals the pistol is empty, Rune throws it aside, draws her casting knife, and looks for a way out as guards rush toward the powder room. To avoid leaving a Crimson Moth signature in plain sight, Rune decides to hide herself and Gideon inside a supply closet and cast Ghost Walker there. Gideon resists being spelled again after already being controlled twice that night, but he relents when Rune warns that otherwise she will abandon him.

In the cramped closet, Rune uses Ava’s blood to mark Gideon and casts Ghost Walker on him, telling him she is saving him for Alex’s sake, not his. When pounding at the door interrupts her before she can cast on herself, Gideon offers blood from his glass-cut palm, and Rune hurriedly uses it to complete the same spell on herself just as guards enter. Hidden by the magic, Rune and Gideon stand pressed together while a soldier opens the closet, looks directly at them, and still fails to see them, though two crimson moth signatures hover above as evidence of the spell.

Rune leads Gideon out of the closet and toward escape, but Cressida enters the room, finds Ava’s body, and studies the scene with suspicion. Although Rune’s concealment holds, Cressida notices the signs of spellcasting and begins to suspect Rune’s involvement. When Soren arrives, Cressida says Gideon has escaped and then insists on verifying that Rune is still locked in Soren’s bedroom.

As Cressida and Soren leave for the second floor, Rune realizes the danger immediately. If they find Soren’s room empty, Cressida will know Rune helped Gideon and exposed herself. Rune briefly considers racing back first and faking innocence, but with the distance, the locked door, and the guards outside the room, she concludes there is no possible way to reach the bedroom in time.