Ana begins by pressing Immunis Rava Ghrelin about the substance stolen from his safe. Ghrelin repeats that it was a new formulation of healing grafts for complex respiratory diseases, but Ana pointedly questions why anyone would commit murder, torture, and deception to steal such a thing. Ghrelin claims he worked alone on the grafts, noticed no suspicious interest or tampering, and had suffered no earlier thefts. When Ana asks about his prior work, Ghrelin reveals that he once served inside the Shroud, immediately changing the direction of the interview.

Because the killer seems to know Yarrowdale’s systems and Ghrelin’s work intimately, Ana argues that the murderer may be an Apoth from Ghrelin’s past rather than from his current project. With Commander-Prificto Kulaq Thelenai reluctantly allowing limited answers, Ghrelin explains that he worked on the Shroud’s veil, which protects Yarrowdale from contagion while leviathan carcasses are processed for valuable reagents. He says the Shroud draws on tissue from leviathans themselves, though Thelenai stops him from giving too much away. As Ghrelin describes his three years there, Din notices him falling into a distinct tapping rhythm that Ana also recognizes.

Ana keeps Ghrelin talking because the subject excites him and makes his tapping more obvious. Ghrelin describes how each leviathan body differs, how workers must quickly learn its anatomy before decay sets in, and how the purest titan’s blood, qudaydin kani, causes dangerous metamorphic reactions when it contacts enough living matter such as mold or fungi. He nearly says too much about navigating a carcass to reach the purest blood before Thelenai cuts him off, and he ends with a restrained explanation that the useful bloods are extracted and sent onward for refinement while the remains are dumped at sea.

When Ana asks whether any former colleagues might have resented the work, Ghrelin rejects the idea and launches into a fervent defense of the Apoths. He argues that their dangerous labor transformed life in Yarrowdale by drastically improving child survival, maternal survival, and overall health, so he cannot believe a fellow Shroud worker would commit the current crimes. This speech shows both Ghrelin’s ideological devotion and his emotional volatility, making him seem unusual even among the other Apoths present.

Ana then tests him with the phrase from the killer’s note: For those who sip from the marrow, Te siz imperiya. The room reacts instantly; the Apoths become unnaturally still, Ghrelin sweats, and then he denies knowing the phrase. Ana secretly repeats Ghrelin’s tapping pattern on the table and follows it by asking whether there had once been a proposal to do something with leviathan marrow. Ghrelin is shaken, and Thelenai abruptly refuses any comment on Shroud proposals, effectively confirming that the subject matters. After the interview, Thelenai tries to protect Ghrelin’s reputation, agrees to send his service record, explains that engravers and hearing-augmented people are barred from the inner fermentation works to prevent theft of unstable formulas, and then refuses Ana a tour because she suspects Ana has unmarked alterations of her own.