Meryn regains consciousness in Killian's luxurious bedchamber, where he explains he found her unconscious in the servant's passage after she failed to meet him. She deflects his concern by claiming exhaustion from training, hiding her fear that the whispers she heard signal inherited madness. When she asks Killian about the carving she saw—a woman riding a direwolf with a wolf crown—he tells her there are no carvings in the servants' passages. Anassa stirs and growls at this revelation, but offers no explanation, leaving Meryn uncertain whether the carving was real or a delusion.

Killian reveals the real reason he summoned her: his people have captured a Nabber—one of the criminals who kidnap commoner children. Meryn immediately demands to see the prisoner, overriding Killian's protests about her health. They descend to the castle dungeons, passing loyal guards, until they reach a badly beaten man bound to a chair, surrounded by bloodied torture implements.

Meryn interrogates the Nabber, who claims he's a poor man from the Southern Quarter hired by a masked figure who paid in gold. When the man refuses to reveal more, Killian steps in with chilling brutality, using pliers to rip out the prisoner's fingernails one by one. Under torture, the Nabber confesses that kidnapped children are taken to an abandoned warehouse in the Southern Quarter, where a masked buyer moves them out of the city. He names his brother and other accomplices involved in the operation. When Meryn asks specifically about Saela, the man insists he doesn't remember her among the many children taken.

Killian orders guards to surround the warehouse, arrest the other Nabbers, and shut down the operation. He then commands a guard to kill the prisoner. At that moment, something snaps inside Meryn—dark shadows swarm her vision as they did when she killed the Daemos Rawbond, and a primal bloodlust surges through her, fueled by Anassa's feral fury. Meryn claims the kill for herself, repeatedly stabbing the Nabber in a frenzied rage until Killian physically pulls her away. Covered in blood, Meryn feels no remorse. Anassa speaks in her mind, declaring that some people deserve to die.