After being deemed “disappointing” in the Trial of the Blood, Gabriel returned to the Barracks, stung by Seraph Talon’s judgment and others’ scorn. Aaron de Coste and the initiate de Séverin confronted him, mocking his lack of a bloodline and his lowborn origins. Gabriel defended his mother’s honor and his resolve as a paleblood to fight, but Aaron belittled the Order’s importance, claiming the imperial Golden Host would defeat the Forever King and that San Michon existed only by imperial whim.

Gabriel argued faith and fate kept him in the Order, but Aaron asserted Gabriel would amount to nothing. Theo Petit then arrived, insulted the nobles’ pretensions, and warned Aaron not to speak lightly of Theo’s master’s death by sangirè. The confrontation cooled with traded barbs, and Gabriel silently thanked Theo. Left alone with his thoughts, Gabriel admitted he still felt called by God despite his failure and lack of gifts, even as he realized an ugly truth: he selfishly prayed the war would not end before he could join it.

The narrative shifted to the present interrogation. Gabriel and Jean-François debated glory and death, the slaughter at Augustin, and the undead. Jean-François claimed vampires’ dead stay dead while humans rise against them; Gabriel argued that the wretched and four highblood kiths would starve the world and would not surrender their corpse armies easily.

Reading the vampire’s stance, Gabriel deduced the imperial motive: they sought the Grail to gain advantage over the other bloodlines. Jean-François denied interest in “children’s stories” and pressed Gabriel to continue his chronological apprenticeship tale, challenging how a lowborn paleblood became the famed Black Lion and then fell so far. A visceral memory of forbidden desire flickered through Gabriel, but he refused to return to San Michon’s story just then.

Asserting control over the telling, Gabriel declared he would jump ahead to the day he found the Grail—how it came to him, how he lost it, and everything between—promising the Empress would have her answers in time and that the tale would circle back to Lorson, the Charbourg, Augustin, and San Michon. After a tense pause, Jean-François reluctantly agreed. Gabriel concluded the chapter by stating his Grail story began with “a rabbit hole.”