At dawn on a sandbar in the Sol River, Royo wakes with Aeri Soo curled against him for warmth. As he studies the rowboat they somehow ended up in after escaping the fire ship, Royo realizes the distance makes their landing in it feel impossible, and he can’t stop replaying how they survived.

Aeri wakes cheerful and chatty, focusing on food and the future, while Royo wrestles with hunger and irritation. When a riverboat appears, they row out and shout until the crew spots them and hauls them aboard, with Aeri’s polished manners and ruined finery helping secure them a plush room again, though they are now a day behind.

Safe in their new quarters, Royo keeps questioning the escape: pirates should have stopped or burned a fleeing rowboat. Aeri tells the captain a heroic version of events, including that Royo fought off arrows before they fell into the lifeboat and that she cut the lines after Royo blacked out; Royo can’t prove she’s lying, but her storyteller instincts make him suspicious.

Inside the room, Aeri talks excitedly about replacing her wardrobe and makeup in Rahway and buying Royo suits for meeting the spymaster, but Royo rejects the idea and their class differences flare. Aeri reveals her mother was a courtesan and that she inherited nothing; her bitterness softens into a moment of mutual understanding when Royo admits his father was never present.

Aeri says that once the etherum crown is removed, “everything will be set right” for both of them, but Royo forces distance back into their partnership and threatens her not to double-cross him. Aeri insists he has nothing she wants and heads out for a stroll in her robe, leaving Royo staring at her velvet purse from the other boat and vowing to figure out what she’s hiding.