The exposed twitch suddenly attacks, moving too fast to track, and kills or mortally wounds multiple Legionnaires with a stiletto and rapid strikes. Miljin and the others try to surround her, but she darts to a window and leaps out, vanishing from sight as alarms and green flares intensify outside.

Ana explains the twitch did not flee; she climbed the tower toward Ana’s rooms, believing the reagents key is there. Ana admits this was bait and insists everyone wait in the atrium, predicting the twitch will return and die.

A scream from above announces the twitch’s return: she staggers down the stairs bleeding heavily from her face. Din recognizes the symptoms as dappleglass contagion, and Ana reveals the trap—after noticing Din’s hairs stolen and a dappleglass leaf left in her teapot, Ana sealed her chest and boiled a tiny piece of dappleglass inside it, leaving the window open so the spores would vent quickly after exposure.

Despite weakening, the twitch vows to kill Ana and attacks anyway, vaulting past Miljin’s line and charging Din and Ana. Din, able to read her slowed movements, uses a sword trick Miljin taught him to trap the stiletto, thrusts through the twitch’s shoulder to disable her arm, then delivers a brutal, imperfect finishing blow that crushes into her eye socket.

Ana warns the dappleglass “bloom” is not finished; Miljin drags Din and Ana clear as the twitch’s body erupts into a violent green-leaf bloom and blood. With the city in panic and a titan making landfall, Vashta orders an evacuation, sends Miljin to imprison Fayazi Haza, and commands Din to get Ana to the cart train as the bells continue to ring.