Walking to the rookery, Din Kol questions Fayazi Haza and her Sublimes about Kaygi Haza’s correspondence, probing for anything unusual while keeping up the pretense of routine inspection. Fayazi and her aides give clipped denials and offer no useful details.

Inside the tower-like rookery, Din studies the paired scribe-hawk cubbies and gets the engraver to explain the system: each destination has a fixed pair, with the home bird kept on the left and visiting birds on the right. Din realizes the presence or absence of birds can indicate recent sending or receiving, which should be impossible if the estate has truly been locked down since Kaygi’s death.

Climbing the stairs to check the plates, Din discovers a critical obstacle: the bronze destination plates are written in Sazi, and Din cannot reliably read, retain, or reproduce the text due to his longstanding mental “engraving” weakness. He finds multiple cubbies that indicate activity—three destinations with both birds gone (sent messages) and one with both birds present (a received message)—but he cannot memorize any place-names by sight.

Under Fayazi’s time pressure, Din uses a workaround: he repeatedly sniffs mint from his vial to anchor the moment, then traces each plate’s engraved letters with his fingertip, hoping his body will remember the shapes later even if his mind will not. Fayazi’s axiom ends the inspection and escorts Din down, leaving Din anxious that Ana Dolabra will discover his affliction when he tries to reproduce the traced words.

Outside, Fayazi leads Din across the grounds, where Din notices towering titan ribs displayed like sculpture. Fayazi offers refreshments, but Din refuses, following Ana’s warning not to eat or drink anything at the estate; Fayazi reacts with an unsettling flash of terror before recovering and watching Din closely as he heads to inspect the walls. Din leaves convinced Fayazi is afraid of something, though he cannot yet tell what.