Class Four arrives in Caten for the Festival of Pletuna. Praeceptor Scitus discreetly issues stone tiles for safety, warning Vis to be back by midnight. In the celebrations, Aequa pushes toward Foundation games, the group starts to split, and Vis notes the crowds and public revelry that once kept him fed.

Amid the bustle, an unseen Will tugs at Vis’s cloak. He quietly leaves the group, hides Scitus’s tracker near a red-framed door, and follows the pull into a poorer district. The tug leads him into a small house where Relucia is waiting.

Relucia immediately presses business: she confirms that Vis’s earlier promotion to Class Four was enabled by the Anguis killing a student at the Necropolis. Vis condemns the murder and demands it never happen again; Relucia refuses to promise, conceding only that she will choose an equally effective alternative if one exists.

Relucia then unveils the broader plan. She engineered the upcoming Suus trip to coincide with a Military summit attended by key senators, including Ulciscor. She wants Vis to covertly learn what transpires in the final, restricted session—especially whether Dimidius Quiscil requisitions anything—arguing he can exploit secret passages in his ancestral home to listen in. She withholds further details, citing the risk if he is caught.

Ideology flares as Relucia frames the Hierarchy’s oppression as the “will of the many,” provoking Vis’s refusal to punish everyone. Concluding the meeting, she says she will send a Will-locked stylus for secure reporting—and delivers a stark ultimatum: if Vis fails, she will kill one of his friends. Vis departs into the festival’s noise, shaken but resolved to protect his classmates and destroy the Anguis if they harm them.