Libby returns to her Manhattan apartment during the December break to find her relationship with Ezra at a breaking point. They have been fighting for two days over her refusal to share any details about where she has been for six months. Ezra insists he's worried about her safety and calls her his responsibility, but Libby rejects his possessiveness, telling him flatly that she is not his. She walks out of the apartment without packing or planning, leaving Ezra behind.

Standing outside in the cold, Libby reflects on a visitor she received earlier—a woman named Williams, representing the Forum, who knocked on her apartment door. Williams challenged the Society's elitism and specifically targeted Libby's deepest wound: her sister Katherine, who died at sixteen from a degenerative disease while Libby was thirteen. Williams implied the Society might possess a cure it never shared, referencing a mysterious "REQUEST DENIED" that haunts Libby's memory. Libby slammed the door on Williams, recognizing the manipulation, but the encounter has shaken her. She recalls years of agonizing research confirming no cure existed, and how Nico's blunt challenge to stop wallowing eventually drove her to channel her grief into academic competition.

Unable to find peace in New York and unwilling to go to Nico's apartment or back to Ezra, Libby takes a medeian transport from Grand Central back to the Society's manor in London a day early. She bypasses the wards she helped build and enters to find Parisa and Tristan drinking absinthe by the fire in the painted room. They invite her to join them, and the three share the bottle while exchanging stories about the Forum's recruitment attempts. Tristan reveals his father is a London crime boss named Adrian Caine, and Parisa openly discusses her history of using sex and telepathy to gain power and loyalty from wealthy, powerful people.

Parisa philosophizes about the freedom of sexual autonomy and challenges Libby's assumptions about monogamy, emotional attachment, and the power dynamics between men and women. As the absinthe flows and intimacy builds, Parisa kisses Libby, then encourages Tristan to do the same, telling Libby she underestimates her own power. Libby, caught between her feelings of freedom within the Society's walls and her frustration with Ezra's possessiveness, initiates a kiss with Tristan. The encounter escalates into a threesome among the three of them.

As the night unfolds, Libby whispers to Tristan not to let her wake up alone—a vulnerable request amid what she recognizes may be Parisa's calculated effort to forge bonds of obligation. Libby suspects Parisa is using sex as a tool of control, creating chains where none existed before, but she doesn't care. For once, she chooses to feel rather than think, surrendering to sensation and connection instead of the perpetual worry and fear that normally govern her life.