Griffin finally reappears late and visibly injured, summoning Robin to the Twisted Root. He brushes off Robin’s anger about the previous botched pickup and injury, gives him a list of texts to steal, and offers only a secret safe house as consolation. Griffin’s indifference to Anthony Ribben’s death deepens Robin’s disillusion.

Meanwhile, Oxford grows hostile to Babel. Attempted break-ins multiply, graffiti and harassment appear, and a mob targets scholars, with Victoire nearly struck by an egg before Ramy shields her. In class, Professor Lovell coldly justifies mechanization and derides displaced workers, even as a bomb scare forces tighter security and Playfair installs unknown warded bars.

Robin witnesses poverty firsthand on the way to dinner at Lovell’s but looks away, unsettled by his remove from true deprivation. As fourth-year exams conclude, Playfair publicly announces results and enacts a ritualized expulsion: Philip Wright fails, his blood vial is smashed, and he is thrown out, shocking the assembled scholars.

Griffin later meets Robin in a distant tavern, more gaunt and wounded, and outlines a plan to steal a silver shipment using explosives, implying a larger objective. Robin, alarmed by the escalation and Griffin’s sloppy secrecy, demands reasons and accountability.

Pressed, Griffin hints at operations tied to thwarting British ambitions in Afghanistan and accuses Robin of clinging to imperial safety. Robin refuses the heist and declares himself out of Hermes. Griffin warns him to stay silent and departs, leaving Robin with a bleak assertion of rootlessness and a challenge to choose his own course.