At Ruhn’s party, the glowing scar on Bryce’s chest reacts when a shadow-wreathed stranger appears. Ruhn, Hunt, Flynn, Declan, and Marc confront the intruder, who reveals himself as Cormac, an Avallen Fae prince and a distant cousin through Bryce’s Fae bloodline. Cormac immediately unsettles the room with his contempt, his claim of kinship, and his announcement that he has come to meet his bride.

Cormac explains that Bryce’s father, the Autumn King, and Cormac’s father, the High King of the Avallen Fae, have arranged a marriage between them. Bryce rejects the idea outright, but Cormac insists that, as an unmarried Fae female, Bryce can be handed from one male guardian to another. When Bryce steps forward and unleashes her starlight in defiance, Cormac reveals his real purpose: he wanted proof that Bryce truly possesses the Starborn gift. Satisfied after seeing her power and hearing the Starsword react to her, Cormac vanishes into shadows, promising to see Bryce at the altar.

After the party breaks up, Bryce tries to contain the fallout by planning to send Ember and Randall out of the city before the news spreads. Hunt, Fury, and Juniper question whether hiding the truth from Bryce’s parents is realistic, but Bryce refuses to risk Ember or Randall reacting violently to the Autumn King’s maneuver. Inside the house, Ruhn and his friends discuss Cormac’s past hostility during Ruhn’s Ordeal and confirm that Bryce has a legitimate claim to the Starsword, which even sings for her. Marc and Declan begin searching Fae law and legal precedent for any way to challenge the forced engagement.

Bryce then steps outside with Hunt and thinks through the political implications instead of panicking. Bryce believes the engagement is not just a marriage arrangement but part of a longer strategy by the Autumn King, possibly designed to provoke Hunt into a reckless act that would damage him under the new Archangel Celestina. Hunt agrees that both the Autumn King and Avallen must have larger motives, but he stays focused on protecting Bryce. Their teasing, intimate conversation briefly lightens the mood and shows how instinctively they work as a pair.

On the walk home, Bryce recognizes that her hope of staying quiet and ordinary has ended; larger powers are moving her back into the center of events. She starts preparing to trick her parents into leaving early, but when she and Hunt reach their apartment, they find the door ajar and smell blood. Hunt enters first with gun and lightning ready, and Bryce fears another personal tragedy. Instead, they discover Ithan Holstrom lying wounded in the middle of the apartment, bleeding across the floor.