Lysander waits in his austere Ionian room for dinner with the Raa family, brooding on home and loss. From his window he watches distant lights—two pursued and destroyed by many—evidence that Dido’s coup is bloody despite public calm. He imagines arrests and executions across the city, all staked on the “proof” Seraphina brought.

A jammer pops; Seraphina slips in through a secret wall, amused by his surprise. She brings him clean clothes, denies his request to see the pilot, and needles him about refusing the Pinks. The banter turns intimate and mocking as she refuses to leave while he dresses, cataloging his scars and fixating on the thin ring at his throat, which rattles his childhood trauma.

They spar over violence and honor. Seraphina argues scars should become liberation by killing abusers, invoking lessons from her father; Lysander demurs, repeating Cassius’s creed that the past needn’t define him. She admits betraying her father feels wicked, revealing conflict that mirrors Lysander’s own divided loyalties. Tension flares, then cools.

Seraphina says Marius believes Lysander and Cassius are spies and challenges Lysander’s motives. When he demands why she took his razor—costing lives on the Vindabona—she claims the greater good and blames the Slave King’s wars for such horrors. She confesses she came to judge if Lysander’s life was worth saving and hasn’t decided.

Before leaving through the hidden passage, Seraphina warns Lysander to give Dido what she wants and that old guest protections may not apply. After she vanishes, Lysander recognizes the trap: he and Cassius are not honored guests of Io, but prey in Dido’s hunt.