Through late Michaelmas and into Hilary, Robin assists three more Hermes thefts, then a fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh, growing confident as the routine becomes easy. He is nearly caught when Cathy O’Nell arrives during a job, but he bluffs and his masked accomplices slip past. Despite the scare, he continues.

A week into Hilary term, Griffin meets Robin by the Thames, praises his efficiency, and withholds details about Hermes. Griffin warns their arrangement is unsustainable: Babel careers funnel into military contracts, wealth built on war, or else require faked deaths and life underground. He urges Robin to remain inside—Hermes needs access to Babel’s silver—and likens Oxford to a glirarium fattening dormice. Robin, attached to Babel’s security yet uneasy, feels split between love and betrayal.

Life at Oxford underscores both privilege and exclusion. Robin sees Babel’s wealth when he lends Bill Jameson money, and he enjoys prestige and access, yet Ramy faces racial barbs and women are restricted and misread. As the cohort learns Oxford slang and social codes, they remain outside the college elite dominated by gentleman-commoners like Elton Pendennis. When Pendennis invites Robin to drinks, Ramy mocks the idea and Letty, distressed, urges him not to go, sparking friction.

Robin attends the party and meets Pendennis, Vincy Woolcombe, Milton St Cloud, and Colin Thornhill. He finds them shallow—Pendennis flaunts a derivative poem and tests Robin’s deference. Robin counters with a defense of translation’s difficulty, “dancing in shackles,” and hints at silver-working’s power, then leaves early, unimpressed and disengaged.

The next day, Ramy and Victoire laugh over the poem, but Letty stays frosty until Victoire reveals Letty’s grief: her brother Lincoln died after a drunken night, and Letty came to Babel in his place, fearful of failure in a hostile environment. The cohort tacitly reconciles. In Playfair’s class, a debate on fidelity ends with the claim that translation is always betrayal; the conclusion pierces Robin, who feels his duplicity anew.