An epigraph explains arcana spells: the deadliest magic, requiring blood taken against someone’s will and often killing the donor, while also corrupting the witch. Rune wakes late and exhausted, reminding herself she must free Seraphine today.

Determined to return Gideon’s handmade buttercups and say goodbye, Rune sends a telegram via Lizbeth to request a meeting. Gideon replies tersely, ordering Rune to meet him at his studio at two o’clock, which gives Rune time to prepare for the prison break plan with Verity afterward.

Rune gathers supplies for the night—stolen Blood Guard uniform, Gideon’s access coin, and her last vial of blood—but finds the uniform’s pockets empty. Panicked, Rune searches the casting room and bedroom and concludes Verity must have taken the wrong uniform by mistake; without the vial, Rune cannot cast, and without the coin, Rune cannot pass the prison gates.

Rune rides to the university to retrieve the missing items, hiding Alex’s ring on a chain under her shirt and daydreaming about escaping with Alex to Caelis. At Summer Hall, Rune goes to Verity’s supposed room, but it is a tiny broom closet, and a cleaning woman insists Verity is not there.

Rune asks the front desk for Verity de Wilde’s room, but the clerk cannot find the name and insists no one by that name lives in Summer Hall. As storm clouds roll in and rain starts, Rune reels from the missing coin and blood vial and the apparent erasure of Verity’s existence; she suspects an illusion and begins to wonder whether Verity is secretly a witch. With no time left, Rune races on horseback toward Old Town to meet Gideon, hoping for answers at the palace afterward.