Paedyn bathes late at night, trying to calm her terror about the sea voyage that begins tomorrow. She fixates on her inability to swim and the risk of drowning, recognizing how vulnerable she will be once at sea. Restless and uneasy, she dresses, takes chocolates Ellie left for her, and decides to confront unresolved tensions before leaving.

Paedyn goes to Kitt’s chambers and finds him awake, distracted by notes and writing. She proposes a makeshift picnic on the floor with chocolates as a peace offering. The room’s plainness and clutter of books and plants surprise her, and they sit together awkwardly, signaling how distant they have become despite their impending marriage.

They begin with small talk but quickly address deeper issues. Kitt suggests Paedyn has changed—hardened by survival as an Ordinary—while Paedyn says she must be hard to endure Ilya. When Kitt mentions she will soon be royalty, Paedyn counters that Edric ensured she would never forget being Ordinary. Kitt notices she still avoids his gaze, as she did during the Purging Trials, and asks if it was because he reminded her of his father.

Paedyn admits she believed Edric killed her father and later learned Edric ordered Kai to do it, and she confirms she killed Edric outside the Bowl after he taunted her. She explains she initially approached Kitt before because she needed access to the tunnels, but her feelings grew more complex. Kitt admits he once felt indifferent about Ordinaries and that his father’s obsession with eradicating them was his undoing. He vows to make Ilya great in his own way, separate from Edric’s shadow.

When Kitt presses about Edric’s continued hold over her, Paedyn reveals that she is haunted rather than controlled. She exposes a scar branded over her heart—an O for Ordinary—inflicted by Edric, who dragged a blade down her neck and promised to mark her so she would never forget who broke her. Kitt is shaken, apologizes, and says the man he knew as his father did not exist as he thought.

Paedyn acknowledges she is no longer the girl from the Purging Trials; something broken emerged from the Bowl after Adena’s death, and she has been stronger since. She tells Kitt he is not the boy she knew either and says she wants to know the king he has become. Kitt replies that he worries what she will find, ending their exchange with a tentative understanding as they face the impending voyage.