Before Cardinal Zizka’s party leaves Troy, Alex finds Sunny in a quiet grove and says goodbye. Alex admits she tried and failed to persuade Zizka to free Sunny, and Sunny urges Alex to stop thinking about what she cannot do and instead choose what to do next. When Alex fears she is not worthy to be Empress, Sunny tells Alex that goodness depends on future choices, not only past sins. They part without the kiss either might have wanted, because both understand there is no future together, and Sunny leaves Alex with a final charge: help other people if she cannot help Sunny.

Elsewhere, Vigga lies injured in a cage, overwhelmed by guilt for killing Baptiste while transformed. She sees herself as filthy, unsafe, and beyond saving, and Zizka reinforces that view by telling Brother Diaz that Vigga is not a patient to heal but a weapon for the Church to use. Diaz insists Vigga deserves pity and thanks her for saving him, but Vigga rejects the idea that she can be redeemed or made safe.

On the ship back to the Holy City, Balthazar initially imagines that his renewed willingness to serve Pope Benedicta will improve his position. Instead, Zizka has him shackled with anti-magic fetters and thrown into the cages with Sunny, Vigga, and Baron Rikard, declaring that his crimes still make him a condemned heretic. Humiliated and enraged, Balthazar turns to the one advantage he still possesses: his secret knowledge about Severa’s true identity. He resolves to use that knowledge to break the Pope’s binding and win his freedom.

Above deck, Jakob questions the cruelty of keeping the prisoners in darkness, and Zizka uses the moment to accuse him of ruining her broader political design. Zizka reveals that she had preferred Michael as a reliable ruler who would have reunited East and West under Church-friendly control, and she blames Jakob’s romantic idealism for wrecking years of planning. Jakob does not back down, and although he answers respectfully, he makes clear that he is not intimidated by her threat.

Back in Troy, Alex visits Diaz in the chapel that now belongs to her palace. Diaz confirms that the others have sailed away and says he has chosen to stay as Alex’s chaplain without worrying what his mother will think. Alex mourns that they could not do more for the devils and questions what qualifies her to rule, but Diaz tells her an Empress’s real task is to choose good people and do good where she can. When Alex points out that a werewolf, a necromancer, a cursed knight, and Sunny saved her more often than any saint did, Diaz concludes that perhaps divine grace worked through those very devils to turn a thief into an Empress.