Virginia reviews a grisly holo from North Hyperion: Sevro has executed the Syndicate’s chief assassin, the Duke of Heads, displaying his severed head in a grotesque tableau. Sevro, operating under lonewolf protocol, has waged a public terror campaign that killed Syndicate thorns and nobles but failed to reach the Queen, provoking a record bounty and drawing mercenaries like the Emerald Orphans. Fearing he will be quietly killed, Virginia resolves to intervene.

After a moment of introspection among her childhood puzzle relics and hidden defenses, Virginia receives confirmation from Holiday that Theodora has secured the Duke of Hands. She launches with Lionguard in stealth shuttles as Luna seethes: Vox and Optimate crowds collide, Zan inflames patriotism, Vox Blackchains terrorize neighborhoods, while Dancer’s moderation draws anxious midColors. With Obsidians likely against her and Mars’ Rollo threatening defecting senators, she presses on to the blacksite.

At the welded-up factory, Splinter operatives and the Violet soprano Basillicus welcome her. Theodora briefs Virginia: the prisoner wields potent pheromonal defenses and psychesonics; salts and filters are required. Holiday briefly falters under the influence before being steadied. Genetic analysis suggests the Duke is a rare custom Pink hybrid from Hysperia Gardens, once patronized by Atalantia. Virginia opens her white box and elects to conduct the extraction herself.

Inside the featureless interrogation cube, Virginia endures the Duke’s pheromonal assault and turns his seduction efforts aside, using a modified psychoSpike to edit and loop his memories. She frames him with a jungle parable—he is the overfed serpent, and she the devouring ants—then methodically anticipates and recites his own lines, shattering his control and confidence. While Theodora’s “leak” drips and Holiday signals that the predictive “fidelity” is confirmed, Virginia secures the intel she needs and reveals she has been stalling. The lights cut, and Sevro—the Goblin of Mars—arrives to take over.