Cassian waits in the training ring, unsure whether Nesta will honor the bargain she made with him. Nesta finally arrives late and miserable because her body is so sore she can barely climb the stairs, but Cassian treats the climb as part of her warm-up and leads her through stretches and drills. After two hours of work, Nesta finds that the stretching eases her pain, and Cassian explains that soreness will lessen with practice, though it never fully disappears for a soldier.

While stretching Nesta’s legs, Cassian draws her into conversation. Nesta reveals that she once took dancing lessons when her father was wealthy, but says she was never his favorite and calls herself her mother’s creature instead. Wanting to avoid speaking further about her mother, Nesta abruptly asks what happened to the priestesses at Sangravah. Cassian explains that Hybern attacked the temple while searching for a piece of the Cauldron, slaughtered many priestesses, and raped others; he adds that Azriel arrived too late to prevent most of the damage. Nesta realizes the full horror of what Gwyn survived, and both she and Cassian quietly acknowledge their relief that Gwyn is now safe in the library.

Elsewhere that afternoon, Cassian accompanies Rhys to a secret meeting with Eris in the Spring Court. Eris presses them to stop gathering information and instead eliminate the human queens, arguing that doing so would disrupt Beron’s plans, but Cassian objects that murdering the queens would ignite a larger war. Rhys agrees that the idea is strategically dangerous, and the conversation shifts to Beron’s real ambitions. By discussing Tamlin’s ruined, unguarded court, Eris and Rhys infer that Beron wants conflict among the fae so that weakened territory such as the Spring Court can be seized afterward.

Eris warns that he can delay Beron’s alliance with Briallyn only briefly and urges the Night Court to move quickly to uncover Briallyn’s motives and Koschei’s involvement. When Cassian asks why Eris wants power, Eris links his ambitions to the old incident with Morrigan and insists Cassian does not know the full truth of what happened at the border. Eris vanishes after telling them to contact him when Azriel returns, leaving Cassian unsettled both by the political threat and by Rhys’s unusual distraction and emotional distance.

Back at the House of Wind, Nesta spends her library shift in silence, sore and preoccupied, noticing Gwyn’s absence and not daring to seek her out after learning about Sangravah. Drawn by the challenge of the stairwell, Nesta attempts the descent and reaches only step one hundred fifty before exhaustion forces her to stop and climb back up. The House of Wind then quietly tends to her with dinner, a deliberately smutty book, a bath scented with oils, and finally a large slice of chocolate cake. When Nesta calls the House her only friend, the moment shows her beginning to accept comfort and companionship from something she cannot control.