After leaving the High City, Din, Ana, and Malo ride back down to Yarrowdale in near silence, shaken by everything that has happened. Malo reflects on Pavitar’s tears after killing Pyktis, and Ana comments that even kings and villains remain human, though that does not lessen the demands of justice. Ana is clearly in pain and physically failing, but she refuses to rest before the case is fully finished and orders them to continue to the docks to see what Thelenai has found.

At the last pier, Din and Malo find Apoth officers in warding suits gathered around an opened crate. Thelenai is there examining a concealed device that resembles the earlier diffuser, but it is now entangled in moss, vines, and strange fungi. She explains that Pyktis hid it inside a water-filled cask meant for the hydricyst, which allowed it to evade detection, and that Dolabra’s warning is the only reason it was discovered. Thelenai and Malo recognize that Pyktis built the device with layered organic traps and a timed decay, showing how carefully he anticipated the authorities’ actions.

When Malo asks if the device can be stopped, Thelenai reveals that she has already removed the bronze cylinder containing the fertilizer needed to activate the kani. Without that reagent, the diffuser cannot function as intended, though she warns that no imperial reagent is ever entirely harmless until destroyed. Din and Malo are overwhelmed with relief, believing the final hidden stage of Pyktis’s plan has at last been prevented.

Then Thelenai asks Din to walk with her to the end of the pier. Looking out over the Shroud, she reflects on how her life first centered on creating it and later on making it unnecessary, and she says she will not live to see the better age she has tried to secure. Thelenai then calmly asks Din to arrest her. She explains that she already chose this outcome after Ana pressed her to decide: although her plans for the Empire may still succeed, she concealed the augury from the Senate, obstructed oversight, and caused dozens of deaths while pursuing her goals. Thelenai admits that pride and self-regard, not pure duty, guided her actions, and she refuses to let the future be built without accountability.

Din struggles with arresting someone of such rank, especially because her crimes were committed in pursuit of a larger good. Thelenai rejects that excuse, insisting that true service is humble and often thankless, unlike the glory she sought. Din finally places Kulaq Thelenai under bonds and charges her with extreme disregard of duty, negligence for imperial lives, and hindering an Iudex investigation. After she is formally confined, Din returns to Ana’s carriage and finds Ana barely conscious. She demands to know whether it is done; once Din confirms that Thelenai is in confines, Ana is satisfied that justice has been served on both Yarrow and imperial sides, and she finally asks to be taken to the medikkers.