Five years ago, Shallan sketches in the family gardens, savoring their controlled calm while recognizing it as a contrived distraction from the household’s shouting. She studies a cremling using a book by Dandos the Oilsworn, but raised voices from the manor freeze her hand and heighten her anxiety. As dusk approaches and another of her father’s frequent feasts nears, she heads inside, reflecting that Father wants her presentable and quiet, and that her recent return to speaking unsettles him. She experiences one of her blank, dissociative pauses.

Van Jushu finds Shallan on the stairs, disheveled and drunk, having gambled away his accessories. He reports that Balat has been setting fires again, nearly burning the servants’ building, and complains that he alone has sense in their crumbling family. He rails that Father favors the absent Helaran, who avoids home and once nearly killed Father.

While helping Jushu toward his room, Shallan passes Father’s chamber, where a door left ajar reveals a painting of a storm at sea. Through the canvas, she alone perceives a powerful white glow outlining a strongbox hidden behind it. When she points it out, Jushu cannot see the light and snaps at her, referencing the trauma of “watching him kill Mother.”

Shallan fixates on the glow, feeling that a monster is contained within and linking it to her mother’s soul. The discovery sharpens her dread of the impending feast and deepens the mystery of her mother’s death, suggesting that Father keeps a dangerous, luminous secret locked away.