During the December holidays, the six candidates are given a brief leave to return home. Reina has no desire to visit her estranged family and initially tries to stay at the manor house, but Dalton informs her that only he and Atlas will remain, and that potential initiates are not invited to the Society's annual events. The other candidates share varying degrees of reluctance about leaving: Tristan dreads returning to his burned bridges, Parisa resents being displaced, Callum is indifferent, and Libby claims to look forward to seeing her boyfriend despite visible signs of irritation whenever he contacts her. Only Nico genuinely wants to go home, even inviting Reina to stay with him and his flatmates Max and Gideon in New York, but she declines.

Reina decides to stay in London and plays tourist, visiting the Globe Theatre, the Tower, the Kyoto Garden, and the British Museum. While viewing a Japanese painting at the museum, a South Asian man named Nothazai approaches her. He reveals knowledge of the Alexandrian Society's existence and recruiting cycle, and identifies himself as a representative of "the Forum"—an organization that opposes the Society's secrecy and advocates for freedom of information and equal access to magical knowledge. Nothazai argues that the Society is inherently classist, hoarding the world's most powerful knowledge while the broader magical and mortal populations suffer from assassinations, secret weapons programs, and biological warfare that the Society either enables or fails to prevent.

Reina engages with Nothazai's arguments but pushes back, questioning whether the Forum's intentions are any less self-serving than the Society's. Nothazai also mentions that Aiya Sato—the Tokyo billionaire Reina briefly encountered in the reading room—has won a parliamentary special election using information that appeared to come from the Society's archives, implying that the archives are already being exploited by those with access. This detail startles Reina, who recalls Aiya summoning an unmarked book during their earlier interaction.

Nothazai leaves Reina with his card, telling her she can contact the Forum if she ever feels trapped by the Society. After he departs, Reina considers the suspicious timing of his approach—occurring precisely during the narrow window when she was outside the Society's wards—and wonders whether the encounter was itself a Society test. Ultimately, Reina crumples the card and throws it away, reaffirming her commitment to the Society. She reflects on the myth of Persephone, identifying with a figure who chose power over being used by others, and resolves that she will take from the world rather than sacrifice herself for it.