Shane confronts Roman with the letters he found and makes clear that he knows Roman has been using enchanted typewriters and wardrobe doors to correspond with Iris Winnow. When Shane produces one of Iris’s more incriminating letters about Dacre’s movements and the Hawk Shire assault, Roman realizes denial is useless. Shane uses Iris’s identity and the hidden correspondence as leverage, forcing Roman to abandon pretense and negotiate directly.

Shane then reveals a new demand. He says Chancellor Verlice will hold an invitation-only press conference in the Green Quarter the next morning and that Dacre will use it to address Oath’s most influential people in hopes of securing the city without bloodshed. Because Dacre will likely bring Roman as his correspondent, Shane orders Roman to slip a sealed envelope to a man wearing a red anemone in the crowd and to leave the courtyard immediately afterward, warning that Roman will not want to remain there.

Roman does not trust Shane, but he recognizes that Shane is acting against Dacre and may be connected to a larger resistance. Faced with the threat that Iris’s letters will be handed to Dacre, Roman agrees to deliver the message and asks for Iris’s letters back. Shane only allows Roman to keep the older letters from before Roman was taken away, then refuses Roman’s request to use the typewriter and instead makes him write out a confession by hand so Dacre will not grow more suspicious.

After Shane leaves with the written confession, the narrative shifts to Iris at the Inkridden Tribune the next morning. Iris cannot focus on her work because Roman has not contacted her. Helena brings Iris a formal invitation delivered to the office: Chancellor Verlice has invited her to the same exclusive evening press conference at the Promontory Building.

Helena suspects the event concerns Dacre’s imminent arrival and warns Iris to be careful because the hour is dangerous. As Iris rereads the invitation, she connects it to Dacre’s earlier demand that she consider his offer and senses that this may be the moment he expects her answer. She decides to attend despite her unease, leaves work to prepare, and ends the chapter believing the long-anticipated confrontation with Dacre has arrived.