One and a half years earlier, Shallan reads Jasnah Kholin’s arguments about women defining their own roles, drawing strength from the notion of choice. Outside her door, guards—likely set to keep Malise from fleeing—stand watch. Determined to act after overhearing Father order Helaran’s assassination, Shallan passes the guards, finds Malise weeping behind Father’s door, then locates Father alone in the feast hall. She prepares his favored spiced violet wine and listens as he complains that his family defies him, noting Balat’s fixation on dead axehounds.

Shallan seeks Balat in the garden and reveals Father’s order to kill Helaran. Balat erupts, then collapses, admitting his fear. Shallan proposes a plan: contact Helaran through a Valath intermediary, arrange for Balat to take Malise—and Eylita—to Helaran, and time their escape during Father’s upcoming trip to Vedenar. She promises to draft a letter warning Helaran of the assassins and asking him to shelter them, noting Helaran is a Shardbearer who can protect them.

Preparing bandages, Shallan returns upstairs and convinces the guards to let her into Father’s sitting room—the Place—which she has avoided for years. A blinding light shines from behind a painting. There she finds Malise injured, with a split lip and a broken arm, and Shallan carefully cleans and binds the wounds.

As Shallan tends her, Malise, terrified and bitter, says Father will destroy them and wonders why he spares Shallan. She doubts Helaran would accept them or that they could reach him. Shallan insists Helaran is good and repeats the plan to flee. Malise asks, if she and Balat leave, who will Father turn his violence upon—maybe Shallan, who “deserves” it. Shallan quietly accepts the risk and departs, resolved to act.