Cassie faces the gray-mist woman in the ballroom and tries to bait her into using the books Cassie stole and replaced with Azaki’s illusions. The woman calmly reveals she already knows the books are gone, dissolving the illusory volumes with a touch and warning that Cassie will be kept alive only to be tortured for information about the Librarian.

The woman escalates by pulling a revolver and boasting about how she tortured her father with it, insisting she does not need books to hurt people. Cassie freezes until Drummond, Azaki (under invisibility), Lund, and Izzy reveal themselves nearby, forcing a confrontation.

Lund suddenly charges, and the woman shoots him, knocking him down. Drummond rushes her next, and she fires again, but the shots fail to stop him; Drummond’s protection comes from the Book of Luck. As the woman tries to raise mist against Cassie, Azaki appears at close range, seizes her wrist, and steals the Book of Mists while Drummond wrests away the gun. Izzy runs to Lund, who insists he is “fine” but is clearly weak and shot.

With the woman disarmed, Drummond and Azaki taunt her and Drummond nearly executes her, but Cassie stops him, insisting he is not a killer. Cassie announces a harsher plan: use the Book of Doors to take the woman to the “nothing and nowhere,” where humans cannot survive, and claims the woman will be torn apart there.

As Drummond and Azaki move to escort the woman, she presses her hands to her feathered skirt—revealed as pages stitched into a garment: the Book of Despair. Azaki screams and collapses clutching his face; the woman grabs Drummond and he also collapses in agony. Cassie backs away in recognition, but the woman lunges, grips Cassie with both hands, and floods Cassie with crushing despair.