Baxil hurries through a lavish corridor with a bag of tools, jumping at imagined footsteps while his confident cousin Av chides him. They follow their mistress—an arresting, foreign-seeming woman with pale violet eyes—deeper into Ashno of Sages’s palace, relying on her assurance that servants are occupied elsewhere.

Reaching the Hallowed Hall, the mistress dons a tool belt and begins destroying artwork: slashing a gold-leaf painting of Epan and gouging the eyes from a bust. She forbids theft despite the wealth around them, focusing solely on vandalism. As she works, Baxil and Av linger, watching and talking to steady their nerves.

The men discuss the Old Magic and the Nightwatcher. Av recounts family boons and curses—numb hands, upside-down sight, and a lifesaving boon of cloth—warning that wording does not control outcomes. The mistress returns to request a padded mallet, quipping that a Shardblade would make things “too easy,” then muffledly hammers a statue, breaking off its arms.

Worried about discovery, Baxil asks Av why the mistress does this, and Av cautions him against prying. The destruction complete, Baxil privately resolves to seek the Old Magic for courage and purpose, even as the mistress’s motives remain opaque and the risk of their daylight sabotage hangs over them.