After helping finalize the Tribune’s response to Dacre’s ultimatum, Iris leaves for home but remembers she has left Enva’s sword hidden beneath Helena’s desk. She returns to the Tribune, waits until the office is empty, and wraps the sword in a jacket so she can carry it without drawing attention. Before she can leave, someone enters the building, and Iris hides in Helena’s office until she realizes the visitor is Roman.

Roman reveals that he followed Iris from Kitt’s house to make sure she was safe. Once they are alone at Iris’s desk, Iris shows him the sword and explains that Enva gave it to her after the bombing and told her the truth about the old gods: Enva killed Alva, Mir, and Luz to keep Dacre from stealing their power, but the cost weakened her and bound her to Oath. Iris also tells Roman that Enva wants Dacre killed, though Iris still does not know how to lure him to a place where music can affect him.

Roman then connects Enva’s charge to what he learned in the war. Remembering that eithrals attacked civilian towns while Dacre seemed absent from the front, Roman reasons that Dacre must command the bombing raids from underground. Because Dacre plans to send eithrals from Kitt’s estate to carry the bombs south the next day, Roman concludes that Dacre will likely be below during the attack and therefore vulnerable. Iris and Roman decide they must enter Dacre’s realm then, most likely by stealing one of his keys, because the parlor door at the house is too heavily guarded.

Once they accept that tomorrow may be their only chance, the planning gives way to the fear that they may not survive it. Iris admits she could no longer have hidden their bond if Roman had touched her earlier, and their restraint collapses. In a tender, desperate reunion, Iris asks Roman to imagine and write an ordinary life for them in another story, one without war or an ending, and they cling to each other as if this night could be their last.