Nesta goes to Clotho with an idea born from her own hard-won routine: she asks permission to invite interested priestesses to train in the House of Wind’s ring each morning. Clotho questions the purpose and who would oversee it, and Nesta explains that Cassian would supervise while she trained beside them. Although Clotho warns that few may come, Clotho gives her blessing, and Nesta posts a sign-up sheet in the library.

Days pass with no names on the list, but Nesta keeps checking it anyway because Cassian encourages her to keep offering the invitation. During this stretch, Cassian advances Nesta’s training from endurance work into basic fighting form, teaching her stance, fist position, breath, and how to punch without injuring herself. Nesta grows physically stronger, holding planks longer, using weights, and climbing farther down the House stairs each night, while the discipline briefly keeps her spiraling thoughts at bay even though her self-loathing still waits beneath the surface.

Nesta also settles more deeply into the House’s strange rhythms. She leaves a smutty book out as a gift to the House, and the House answers by placing autumn flowers on her desk the next morning. She hears that Gwyn has been kept busy by Merrill’s Valkyrie research, continues shelving books, and even turns the work into exercise. Yet the empty sign-up sheet slowly wears at her hope, making her question whether reaching out matters if no one responds.

That fragile progress is disrupted when Elain visits the private library to see how Nesta is doing. Their conversation quickly hardens into a confrontation about Nesta’s forced stay, her drinking and sexual behavior, and the way Feyre and Elain handled the intervention. When Elain says their actions came from love and invokes their dead father, Nesta erupts. Her power flares visibly in her eyes, and she cruelly suggests Elain could have saved their father if she had arrived sooner, even though Nesta knows that accusation is false and is really projecting her own guilt.

Elain leaves in tears and asks Rhys to take her home. After Elain tells Rhys and Cassian that Nesta is not improving, Rhys reacts with cold anger, and Cassian pushes back, insisting that Nesta is making progress and that her sisters should not visit again without her consent. Cassian then storms down to confront Nesta directly.

In the library, Cassian demands to know what happened. Nesta lashes out at his assumption that she is to blame, and the House lights a fire behind them. Nesta immediately orders the fire extinguished, but the House ignores her, and Cassian notices a flash of real fear in her reaction. Still furious, he follows her toward the stairwell and accuses her of driving away the people who love her. Nesta seems ready to unleash her power again, then suddenly goes blank and says nothing. Instead of answering him, she turns away and begins descending the stairs.