Ophelia crashes back through the dining room floor after summoning the Whispering Gate, but Blackwell is waiting and catches her before taking her to her room. When Ophelia tells him she saw her mother, Blackwell explains that souls and Devils on the Other Side can use the Whispering Gate to communicate across planes, and that Ophelia’s nature as both Necromancer and Specter likely lets her access it when someone there strongly wants to reach her. Ophelia hopes that means she might see her mother again someday, but Blackwell says he does not know.

Ophelia then admits that she told her mother everything, including the truth about Phantasma, Genevieve, and Blackwell. She reveals that her mother strongly warned her to stay away from him, likely because of what happened to Ophelia’s parents. Instead of resisting that warning, Blackwell agrees with it and says that after Jasper exposed the past, he realized Ophelia had been right to ask for distance.

Blackwell says there can be no future for them and insists they must think of each other only as business partners. He admits that he still needs Ophelia to free him, but says he has to look after himself before time runs out and the quest fails again. When Ophelia pushes back, Blackwell reminds her that if he fails, he will have to take a decade of her life, using that threat to reinforce that their bond cannot be trusted. His cold practicality humiliates Ophelia and turns her hurt into anger.

The argument becomes openly hostile. Ophelia compares Blackwell to Sinclair, rejects his attempt to minimize what has passed between them, and demands that he stop calling her “angel.” She tells him that if they are truly only partners, he must address her as Miss Grimm and keep things strictly professional. Blackwell accepts the boundary and vanishes, leaving Ophelia alone and emotionally wrecked.

When Ophelia finally falls asleep, she is trapped in the same nightmare that has haunted her before. In Grimm Manor, the Shadow Voice appears as a real smoky entity controlling her like a puppet while faceless suitors mock her as unstable and monstrous and her mother and Genevieve stand by in disappointment. Under the Shadow Voice’s command, Ophelia is forced to murder the suitors and is then pushed toward killing her mother and sister as well. She wakes before the final blow, gasping, with her locket hot and pulsing against her skin and a familiar static lingering in the air, suggesting the dark force around her is becoming more tangible.