Gideon Sharpe showers after another exhausting capture, pressing his fists to the tiles as blood seems to run down his skin—partly memory, partly fresh reality. His nightmares and flashbacks now intrude while he is awake, and he can’t stop thinking about the prisoner he delivered tonight and what happened once she was out of his hands.

Gideon blames himself for leaving the Tasker brothers alone with the witch. He despises witches, but he also hates needless cruelty, and he recalls being overruled before when the brothers nearly beat a witch to death; his superiors treated such violence as acceptable. He tells himself he will deal with the problem later, because he is too worn down to act tonight.

As he scrubs, Gideon fixates on the brand seared into his left pectoral—a rose with knifelike thorns inside a crescent moon—left by Cressida, the youngest Sister Queen. Though Cressida is dead, Gideon is marked physically and mentally; he considers cutting the brand out but can’t steady his hands enough to do it.

Gideon forces his thoughts forward to his next objective: the opera. His source, Harrow, tipped him off to Seraphine’s whereabouts and is meeting him tonight with news about the Crimson Moth, the elusive witch who keeps undermining the Blood Guard.

Gideon reviews why the Moth terrifies him: Blood Guard officers have been found mutilated—chests ripped open and blood drained—and the killings tend to precede prison breaks. Gideon suspects the Crimson Moth uses fresh blood for spells to free captured witches, and he steels himself to attend the opera, gather Harrow’s information, and plan his next move to finally catch her.