After sunset, Gideon Sharpe rides with Harrow to Freshwater Street in the capital’s entertainment district, hoping to find the missing Tasker brothers by questioning places they frequented. Instead of the usual noise, the district is unnervingly quiet, with a hushed crowd gathered at an alley.

Gideon forces his way through the onlookers and finds an elderly man standing over a blanket covering two bodies. When Gideon lifts the blanket, he discovers James Tasker dead—pale, eyes hollow, his throat grotesquely hacked open. The elderly man confirms the second body has the same fatal wound.

Though Gideon disliked the brothers and had tried to have them discharged for their cruelty, he orders the man to fetch the undertaker. Gideon then follows Harrow deeper into the alley, where she raises a lantern to reveal a message smeared in blood across the brick wall: You’re next, Gideon.

Harrow presses Gideon on what he will do. Gideon decides to report the murders to the Commander, expecting a reinstated curfew and renewed raids. He admits such measures now unsettle him because the power is easily abused, and they may still not stop the Crimson Moth.

Concluding the only real solution is to catch the Crimson Moth, Gideon’s thoughts turn to Rune Winters and their earlier conversation. He wrestles with the possibility that Rune is hiding a darker truth and vows not to let his feelings interfere with finding the truth—however sickening the answer might be.