Imprisoned in Toledo, Luzia spends her days dozing, pacing, and talking with Teoda and sometimes Neva. The women are allowed brief trips to the courtyard for water and sanitation, and they receive meager rations from a provisioner—until one day the smell of cocido drifts through the corridor and, unexpectedly, the guard Rudolfo brings a steaming bowl to Luzia’s door.

Luzia learns through the wall from Lucrecia de León that a playwright has taken up a collection for her at the theater, and the rich stew feels unreal and almost unbearable in its kindness. The next morning Rudolfo delivers folded clothes and orders Luzia to hand over her dirty garments to be laundered “at home,” a word that stings because Luzia has no home or family in Toledo.

Neva urges Luzia to search the seams for a hidden message. Instead, a small sprig of rosemary falls from the sleeve—romero for protection—and Luzia understands the gifts are from Valentina. The rosemary sparks painful, cautious hope: not that Valentina and Marius can save her, but that someone outside the walls remembers her and might pray for her.

At night, Luzia cries and sometimes screams into her fist, furious that all her striving and victories in the Torneo have led to this helplessness. Hungry for anything that might prepare her, Luzia listens when Teoda explains what interrogation and torture look like: stripping meant to shame, a cold room, inquisitors and record-keepers, and devices like the rack. Neva adds her own testimony—how talking without giving the “right” answers only led to tighter cords and lasting scars, even as a doctor was sent afterward to keep her alive.

Luzia’s fear turns into bleak arithmetic as she imagines death without mercy or rescue, wondering who will carry her when it is over. With Hualit gone and Santngel possibly dead or captured, Luzia spirals into doubt: she suspects Santngel both used her and cared for her, and concludes that, in the end, she is not worth the risk of being saved. She clings to the rosemary’s scent, even as she believes her name will vanish into ash.