From a rooftop opposite South Caten Prison, Vis and Aequa watch for the right moment to free Lanistia before the night’s planned killings begin. The city feels tense and half-deserted, and the prison appears lightly staffed but hard to breach. After Vis checks the street and finds no obvious lookout, he returns to the roof and discovers Tertius Decimus has already found Aequa.

Decimus, grieving and unstable, confronts Vis with Aequa in his grip. Aequa tries to defuse the situation by reminding Decimus that Vis has also suffered losses, but mention of the naumachia triggers Decimus’s rage. He reveals that Iro died three days earlier after lingering injuries, blames Vis for the chain of events that destroyed his family, and insists Vis keeps choosing personal attachments over the greater good. When Vis pleads for Lanistia and tries to reason with him, Decimus demands that Vis experience the same helpless loss he has felt.

Decimus crushes Aequa’s skull in front of Vis, then easily defeats Vis’s furious attack. After Vis provokes him by invoking Decimus’s children, Decimus breaks both of Vis’s legs and leaves him pinned on the roof, certain that Vis will be forced to listen while Lanistia and others die. He argues that reporting him would only trigger more bloodshed when Caten needs every fighter against Military, and he claims that in the end only power, not moral argument, matters.

Alone beside Aequa’s body, Vis grieves but forces himself to think strategically. Kadmos’s tea dulls the pain enough for him to act, and his Harmonic imbuing gives him an option Decimus did not anticipate. Vis painfully pulls each broken leg back into alignment with imbued metal, then constructs crude movable braces and a harness that redistribute his weight. After repeated practice, he manages to walk convincingly enough to continue the rescue despite the agony.

Vis goes to the prison entrance with forged transfer orders and uses Adoption to open the Will-sealed door at the right moment, making his story appear legitimate. Inside, he bullies the two Septimus guards into compliance by invoking Princeps Laurentius, the night’s secret operation, and the threat of immediate violence. While checking the ledger for Lanistia, Vis finds her name and then makes a far more shocking discovery: Ulciscor Telimus is also imprisoned there in the deep cells. After nearly collapsing from pain once the inner door closes, Vis gathers himself and continues downward into the prison.