Meryn and Igor have organized self-defense training for a dozen neighborhood children, meeting after school in the exercise yard. Their efforts prove their worth when twelve-year-old Timun successfully fights off a Nabber using a carving knife and escape techniques Meryn taught him. Igor compliments Meryn's teaching ability and suggests she could charge wealthier families in the Northern Quarter for similar lessons, potentially offering her a way out of her laundry job and the Southern Quarter's poverty.

During a training session, Meryn and Saela demonstrate escape techniques for the children, with Saela acting as the volunteer who breaks free from a grab from behind. Meryn emphasizes how smaller people can use their size as an advantage and encourages the children to practice in groups. Afterward, Meryn walks Saela home, mulling over Igor's suggestion that her fighting skills could become a legitimate livelihood.

Later that week, Meryn's boyfriend Lee—a messenger who works at the castle—visits for their biweekly family dinner. Meryn confides that her mother's health is worsening after a troubling medic visit where she was told the maximum medicine dosage has been reached. The evening begins promisingly: Meryn's mother is lucid and cooking her late husband's favorite fish stew. Over dinner, Saela eagerly asks Lee about the Bonded City, and he describes the wide streets built for direwolves and a pup he once saw from the castle. The warmth of the evening shatters when Meryn's mother suddenly becomes delusional, calling Lee a traitor cursed by "Nocturn" and attempting to strike Meryn. Meryn restrains her, carries her to bed, and administers her medicine.

After putting her mother to bed, Meryn finds Lee reading to Saela, his steady presence signaling he isn't scared off by her mother's episode. Meryn reads Saela a chapter from a favorite legend before sending her to bed. Outside, Lee confronts Meryn about the violence, expressing concern for Saela's safety. He proposes that Meryn and Saela move in with him, offering to find a bigger place or rearrange living situations so they can still check on her mother. Meryn, deeply moved, tearfully agrees to consider it. They share an intense, passionate moment in a nearby alley before Meryn reluctantly declines going home with him, unwilling to leave Saela alone given the threat of Nabbers since Leesa's kidnapping.

When Meryn returns inside and goes to check on Saela, she discovers the bedroom window shoved open and Saela's bed empty. Saela is gone.