Still bleeding from Remi’s earlier attack, Genevieve navigated hidden passages from the dining room to the kitchen and up to the secret room behind the library. On the way, a rotten stair collapsed and her choker snagged, leaving her ankle sprained and a ring of bruising on her neck. She took refuge in the empty secret room and drank whiskey until she dozed off, refusing to show weakness to Knox’s viewing audience.

Genevieve woke to Rowin and Umbra already in the room. Rowin teased her about the marks on her throat, then examined her injuries and pressed to relocate, warning that the secret room was no longer safe. Genevieve admitted Remi had impersonated Rowin and attacked her earlier. Rowin lifted her and opened the rotating bookcase from the secret side to exit into the library.

Before they could move on, Remi entered, drawing the Hunting Blade. After barbed remarks—Remi complaining Genevieve tore out his lip piercing and Rowin warning him off—Remi launched an acrobatic assault. He stabbed Rowin’s shoulder, but Rowin used the opening to snap Remi’s arm. The brothers grappled viciously; Remi tore the dagger free and stabbed Rowin’s side, shouting that he wanted out. Rowin urged his twin to let him end it.

As Remi prepared a killing blow toward Rowin’s heart, Genevieve shoved over a heavy bookcase, knocking Remi unconscious under the fallen shelves. Rowin, impressed and pragmatic, urged immediate retreat, noting immortality would let Remi recover soon.

Rowin guided Genevieve into an enchanted meadow room, now a star-lit nightscape with fireflies and a flowing river. He praised her quick action, and the moment stirred Genevieve’s memory of Rowin’s letter to Remi about their rift. To deflect the surveillance, she proposed “two truths and a lie” with coded questions, masking talk of Rowin’s search for a cure as a “birthday gift.”

Rowin answered candidly: he had won Favored fifteen years earlier and chosen his ring as his boon; he no longer knew where he would live if free; and his attempts to find the “gift” had yielded only dead ends and unanswered letters. When Genevieve asked about a past masquerade fight with Grave, Rowin claimed it was his turn, and they continued exploring the meadow without resolving that topic.

Crossing a silver bridge, Genevieve triggered a sinking stone that sent a school of glowing, gold fish downstream. Rowin recognized this as the room’s hidden puzzle for Knox’s token—solve and survive to gain immunity for the next round. Testing the mechanism, he pressed the loose stone again to release more fish, and the two prepared to investigate further triggers.