A planning note explains Carl's intended Plan A: when Donut takes the stage, she is supposed to use a charm potion to magically bind Ferdinand, Queen Imogen's cat, and turn him into a controllable minion. Before that plan can unfold, Queen Imogen suddenly appears in the ballroom, visibly bloodied from fighting elsewhere in the castle. She calls for Ferdinand, realizes he is trapped by the ballroom rules like everyone else, and then immediately turns her attention to Signet and Carl, taunting Signet for being unable to strike without breaking the seal. Katia scans Imogen and reports terrifyingly strong stats, unlimited mana, and broad magical defenses. Imogen then drags Carl through the room with magic, accuses him of orchestrating the siege on her castle, and, during the confrontation, Carl receives confirmation that Gideon is dead.

Explosions shake the palace as Sledge reports that the Twister house and its guard turrets have been destroyed. Carl realizes that by entering the goodwill ballroom, Imogen has trapped herself inside unless someone breaks the seal. Instead of leaving to defend her castle, she sits in the audience and coldly orders the performances to continue. Soon after, the crawlers regain access to spells and inventory without the normal warning flash. Samantha reports that she removed the two right-side soul crystals, but the left-side crystals had already been pulled by someone else after mantises decapitated the ballroom guards. Carl pieces together what happened: Diwata, in Circe's form and hidden among the mantises, infiltrated the castle and tried to interfere with the ballroom protections in support of Vrah's attack.

Carl studies the room and the chat reports to understand the enemy's timing. Outside, Sledge and Imani describe a worsening disaster: mantises are swarming the castle, elves are fighting everywhere, brambles are advancing faster than expected, and more crawlers are dying. Inside, Vrah's hunters begin moving with unnerving coordination toward Katia, Lucia, and the others, clearly waiting for an opening to force the seal to break. Because Carl now believes Lucia cannot safely be used as the trigger, he sees his options collapse. He privately reaches the point of considering the doomsday scenario or killing Eva himself to break the seal on his own terms. Even so, he tells Donut to go ahead with her full performance and not forget Ferdinand, keeping Plan A alive as the last structured move his group still controls.

While Horton prepares to perform, Signet corrects Carl's misunderstanding about Tina. Signet explains that Tina does not truly want a dance recital; Tina wants her mother back, and Kiwi already contains the mother Tina seeks. At the same time, Samantha battles Diwata below the ballroom. After Carl tells Samantha to lose big if she has to, Samantha literally bites down on the soul crystals. The resulting blast wrecks the control area, knocks Diwata out, and blows open parts of the floor beneath the ballroom, exposing a grotesque, gore-filled gap below. The damage is enormous, but the goodwill ballroom remains active enough to keep functioning.

Carl briefly settles on sacrificing Eva to break the seal, and Imani and Elle argue with him when they realize what he intends. Before Carl can act, Signet stops him and offers a stronger answer. Furious at Empress D'Nadia's claim that her mother and her dead companions were never real, Signet decides to cast Ink Marauder in its single-person form, making herself the caster, sacrifice, and killer all at once. She asks Carl to time it and to have Donut strengthen the spell with moon-fed Torch magic if possible. When Sledge then reports that changelings have opened a temporary path and his group is no longer completely trapped, Carl abandons despair, declares that they are back in business, and orders everyone to prepare Plan A and Escape Plan D.