In her hidden bedroom study, Rune Winters is interrupted while reading the Earth Sunderer spell when Alex slips in through the false wall passage. Seeing she is still in her nightgown, Rune hurriedly closes the hidden entrance to protect her spell books from discovery.

Alex gives Rune a silver Blood Guard access coin bearing Fortitude’s image, explaining he won it from Gideon Sharpe in a card game. Rune recognizes the coin as the key her allies need for the planned prison rescue, and she briefly imagines the safe, beautiful life Alex keeps promising her in Caelis, though guilt about the ongoing witch purge stops her from fully embracing it.

Alex then drops a second, more urgent revelation: Cressida Roseblood is alive, and the recent fire that nearly killed Rune was Cressida’s spellwork, not Seraphine’s. Rune struggles to accept it and presses Alex to confirm he killed Cressida on the eve of the New Dawn.

Alex admits he lied. He went to Thornwood Hall intending to kill Cressida, found her begging for her life, and—despite wanting revenge for the damage she caused his family—could not become a murderer. Instead, Alex fired into the roof and ordered Cressida to run, threatening her if she ever returned to Gideon.

Shaken and furious at the deception, Rune also realizes Cressida’s survival puts Gideon in danger. When Alex moves to confess to Gideon, Rune stops him, warning that admitting mercy toward a witch would get Alex executed. Alex agrees that he does sympathize with witches, and after Rune pleads with him to stay silent, Alex promises not to tell anyone—especially Gideon—the truth.