Iris arrives at Hawk Shire at dawn with Attie and Tobias after driving through the night. Soldiers initially block civilians from entering, but Iris insists she carries an urgent message for Captain Keegan Torres and is escorted inside alone. As she crosses the camp and the town, she sees the scale of Enva’s losses: exhausted troops, rows of wounded soldiers in the market, and a grim stillness that suggests Hawk Shire is barely holding together.

Inside the factory serving as headquarters, Iris is told that the officer who will meet her is now Brigadier Torres. Keegan arrives, recognizes Iris, and reads Roman’s warning letter. Iris then explains the magical typewriter bond between her and Roman, including that Roman is alive but imprisoned by Dacre and suffering memory loss. Keegan accepts the warning as credible, realizes Dacre may arrive within a day, and gives Iris, Attie, and Tobias food and a place to rest while she consults her officers.

After sleeping deeply, Iris wakes to what first seems like a violin and finds herself in a dreamlike encounter with her mother, Aster. The dream dissolves before Aster can answer Iris’s questions, and Iris wakes for real to a distant rumbling. When she looks outside, she discovers that Hawk Shire is already being emptied: wounded soldiers are being loaded into lorries and troops are moving out, proving that Keegan believed Roman’s message and has ordered an evacuation.

Iris immediately joins the work, helping load injured men onto the trucks because she knows Dacre could capture and magically repurpose anyone left behind. Attie and Tobias find her in the chaos, and Keegan explains that Hawk Shire is being abandoned and that the evacuation is heading to Oath. Keegan further reveals that Enva’s southern battalions have fallen, many soldiers have been killed or taken by Dacre, and her brigade is effectively the last of Enva’s forces.

Although Keegan urges Iris, Attie, and Tobias to leave at once, the three insist on staying to help with the wounded. Tobias offers a practical solution by promising to use the faster Hawthorne Route in his roadster to rejoin the retreat later, reducing the risk of delaying the column. Keegan agrees, returns Roman’s letter to Iris, thanks the three of them for arriving in time, and allows them to assist. As Iris resumes helping the evacuation, she cannot stop thinking about Roman moving somewhere underground and ever closer through the ley lines.