At the River House, Mor leads Nesta, Cassian, and the others into an eerily silent house and explains that Feyre began bleeding hours earlier despite being months from her due date. In the bedroom, Nesta sees Feyre pale and failing, Rhysand at her side, and Madja covered in blood. Madja explains that she turned the baby, but he is stuck in the birth canal, Feyre is losing too much blood, and the baby’s heart is in distress.

When Mor asks what can be done, Madja says there is effectively no safe option. Cutting the baby from Feyre’s abdomen has never succeeded and would likely kill Feyre, especially in her weakened state. Feyre, thinking only of saving her child, orders Madja to do it anyway. Rhysand resists at first, but Feyre insists as High Lady, and he finally agrees. Elain takes Feyre’s hand and begins praying, and Nesta joins her in helpless desperation.

As Madja prepares the knives and tools, Cassian realizes the full horror of the bargain between Feyre and Rhysand: if Feyre dies, Rhysand will die with her. Rhysand tries to ease Feyre’s pain by going into her mind, and Feyre refuses any good-byes. Madja performs the procedure and delivers a tiny winged boy, but he does not cry or move. Mor takes the silent child, Rhysand breaks into tears, and then Madja’s reaction makes clear that Feyre is still slipping away.

The room descends into chaos as Rhysand screams and lunges toward Feyre, while Cassian and Azriel restrain him so Madja can keep trying to save her. Nesta feels Death gathering around Feyre and Rhysand and understands that all three lives are being lost at once. Overwhelmed by the sight of her sister dying after all Feyre has done for their family, Nesta steps back from the bed and reaches into the power within her that changed on Ramiel.

Golden light flares, and Cassian sees that Nesta has armed herself with all three pieces of the Dread Trove at once: the Mask, the Crown, and the Harp. The power remakes her into something terrifying and otherworldly, and even Rhysand is frozen when she raises a hand. As Feyre gives a death-rattle breath, Nesta approaches the bed, touches the Harp’s final string, and plucks the twenty-sixth string, making a decisive, dangerous attempt to defy death itself.