Halfway up a mountain that had looked small from a distance, Cassian calls a halt for the night. Nesta collapses as soon as she reaches the flat ground, and Cassian remains cold and distant, speaking to her only to tell her to remove her pack. He leaves food for her after she falls asleep, but Nesta ignores it, wraps herself in a blanket, and lies in the cold.

For the next two days, Cassian leads and Nesta silently follows, staring at his back and saying nothing. The climb is punishing, and Nesta becomes increasingly weak, but she refuses to ask to stop for water because stopping would leave her alone with the thoughts she is trying to outrun. As her headache worsens and her body sways with dehydration, Nesta finally stumbles and collapses facefirst onto the stones.

Cassian rushes to her, realizes she has fainted, and sees how badly she has neglected herself. He forces water into her and angrily demands when she last drank, but Nesta offers no explanation and seems frighteningly indifferent to whether she lives or dies. Although Cassian wants to comfort her, he trusts an inner sense telling him to keep moving, so he declares they will camp nearby and physically carries Nesta, pack and all, to flatter ground. After she wakes, he tells her they are heading north and that they will reach a lake by nightfall.

As they continue, Nesta sinks deeper into self-condemnation. She thinks about her lifelong anger, her cruelty toward Feyre and Amren, her fear that Elain now hates her, and her belief that she was born wrong and does not know how to change. When she reaches the turquoise lake at last, one question destroys the last of her control: whether she is worth being counted at all. Nesta falls to her knees on the stones and breaks down weeping.