Hunt and Ruhn wait for Bryce at the rendezvous point after her trip into the archives runs long. Ruhn, already unable to reach Day through the comm-crystal, decides he cannot wait any longer if he wants to reach the imprisoned agent in the dungeons, and he slips away under cover of shadow despite Hunt's objection. At the same time, Bryce returns to the top of the stairs intending to teleport back, but the chance to investigate one more room tempts her, and she enters a chamber labeled Dusk.

Hunt stays behind only because Declan sends word that Bryce is alive and has entered the Dusk room. Hunt realizes Bryce is probably chasing a lead connected to Dusk's Truth, but that does not calm him, especially with Ruhn already gone. In the dungeons, Ruhn finds the halls unnervingly empty, then hears screams from deeper inside and presses on toward Day's cell. Before he can reach her, Mordoc steps into his path and exposes Ruhn's presence.

Elsewhere, Tharion follows Cormac through the chaos of the lab attack while shielding them with water as Cormac throws fire. Tharion realizes Cormac has abandoned any promise to limit casualties when Cormac kills the doctor who led them in and also kills the scientists and engineers inside. Rebel gunfire erupts as planned, but the ambush turns personal when Pippa appears and shoots Cormac in the shoulder. When Cormac orders Tharion to leave, Tharion understands that Cormac never expected to survive this mission.

Inside the Dusk room, Bryce finds a round table with seven seats, a projector, and walls covered in annotated star-maps. The records reveal that the Asteri have conquered many worlds, judged their peoples by how useful they were as food, and destroyed planets that could not sustain them. Bryce studies notes on Midgard and realizes the Asteri did not simply rule its peoples; they lured different races from other worlds through gates and trapped them here to be farmed for firstlight.

Bryce keeps searching and finds records on Hel. The notes confirm that Hel's rulers once united against the Asteri, drove them from Hel, pursued them to Midgard, and tried to warn the colonists here, which aligns with what Apollion claimed. Horrified by the scale of the Asteri's predation and determined to help Hel destroy them, Bryce searches for the Asteri's original home world, only for Rigelus to speak through the room's intercom and tell her that even the Asteri no longer know where its ruins are. Bryce answers with a direct vow to kill him.