Immediately after Achilles abandons her, Alexis sprints through Roman alleys with Titans pursuing her. She refuses to leap to the men she knows out of a desire to prove her independence. The Titans land in a park near the Colosseum, blocking her path. When a camera flash draws their attention to elderly humans playing chess nearby, Alexis remembers Persephone’s warning about avoidable casualties. Just as she prepares to leap to safety, she sees that the humans are in danger.

Alexis throws herself in front of the civilians and opens fire. As the humans begin praying in Latin, she runs out of bullets. Fluffy Jr. leaps at one Titan and tears out its throat. Nyx leaves Alexis to help, and Alexis draws two daggers, stabbing a Titan in the chest. The creature slices through her back, exposing bone, but she engages her blood powers and repeatedly stabs it. As she fumbles for her cuffs, the first Titan’s body reassembles and rises.

The revived Titan grabs Alexis and flies straight up. She sees crowds filming below and focuses on a chess table, shouting her leap command. They crash into the table, and she finds an elderly woman, Lucia, badly cut by concrete. As Alexis tries to stop the bleeding, humans call her their savior. She vomits from pain as both Titans rise again. She finds that Augustus’s pager is crushed.

Alexis takes an opening to stab the second Titan in its chest, and Nyx lunges to help. Her marriage bond pulses intensely. The Titan falls but slices off her ear. As government drones fly overhead, the Titan beneath her revives. Augustus suddenly appears, strangling a Titan with a chain attached to a third captured one. Kharon arrives, sees her missing ear, and slices off his own left ear with a dagger. As rain pours, he sews his ear onto Alexis’s head. Augustus kisses her forehead before the rain drenches them all.

Kharon kneels in the pouring rain, finishing the methodical stitching of his severed ear onto the side of Alexis’s head. He knows that Spartans can fuse donated body parts if attached within hours. His hellhounds, Hell and Hound, patrol protectively around them as he finishes. The skin is already changing color, indicating that her body is accepting his ear. When Alexis coughs, he sees the horrific extent of her back wounds—skin hangs unattached, exposing white vertebrae. He rips off his shirt to apply pressure.

Alexis weakly asks how they found her. Kharon declares that he is hers forever and will carve himself apart to make her whole. She denies the importance of their connection, but they kiss, nonetheless. Augustus interrupts, exasperated at finding them kissing while bleeding out, and announces that he will carry them both to a safe house while dragging three chained Titans.

As Augustus carries Alexis and supports Kharon through the rain-soaked streets, a group of elderly humans blocks their path. Lucia, despite her chest injury, demands to know where they’re taking Alexis. When Kharon raises his gun, Augustus stops him and swears that they’re taking her for medical treatment. A man calls out “Angelus Romae”—the Angel of Rome. The crowd parts reverently, touching Alexis and spitting on the Titans as they chant her title. Kharon feels possessive, thinking that she belongs only to him and Augustus.

At the end of the street, Achilles appears. Augustus explodes with fury, screaming that Achilles abandoned Alexis to die and shouting that he disgusts him. Achilles takes a guilty step back and then leaps away without apologizing.

Augustus carries Alexis and Kharon through Rome while dragging the three chained Titans, ignoring his own injuries. The hellhounds lead them to a hidden Chthonic safe house. Inside, he lays Alexis on the bed while Kharon collapses beside her. Augustus drags the Titans to the cellar and hangs them from titanium ceiling hooks, attaching Alexis’s Hercules tags to the winged ones to credit her with their capture.

In the bathroom mirror, Augustus notices blood still dripping from his eyes despite not using his powers, signaling that his powers are changing. His headaches are worsening. He slaps Kharon awake and orders him to shower. After asking the semi-conscious Alexis for permission, he removes her wet clothes and carries her into the shower. Sitting with her on the built-in bench, he washes her wounds while calling her “brave,” “strong,” and a “prodigy” (150).

Overcome with guilt at her ruined back, Augustus whispers that they don’t deserve her. Kharon stumbles naked into the shower, agreeing that they’ll never deserve her but arguing that because Alexis is “pure,” she needs monsters like them for protection, citing how Hades protects Persephone. After a tense exchange about the ear, Kharon passes out. Augustus administers an expensive Olympian healing agent that puts both of them in a light healing coma. He bandages their wounds, tucks them into bed with Poco, and then showers and dresses himself.

Augustus stands guard at the door. His headache eases, and the marriage bond hums with contentment. He whispers a Latin promise to “raise hell” for her.

Three days later, Alexis awakens from the healing coma to Kharon sensually touching her. Augustus watches and directs from across the room. Just as they’re about to have sex, Augustus stops him, saying that she’s too injured. Instead, Augustus brings Alexis to orgasm.

Afterward, Alexis notices the bandages covering the side of Kharon’s head. The memory of him slicing off his own ear returns. She bursts into tears. Kharon explains that it was an apology for how they treated her and is an old Spartan tradition, citing the phrase “acta non verba”—“[d]eeds, not words” (163).

Devastated, Alexis reveals that she has been partially deaf in her left ear since childhood, making his sacrifice useless. Augustus and Kharon demand to know who injured her ear. When Alexis tries to lie about falling, they don’t believe her. She has an unexpected epiphany and laughs, telling them that she’s no longer afraid of them.

Augustus briefly leaves to deliver the Titans from the cellar. Upon his return, Kharon leaps them all back to the villa atrium, where Alexis tells her husbands that she doesn’t think their relationship works. Augustus insists that they’re trying to be better for her. Their marriage bond suddenly zaps with intensity.

Patro’s voice sounds from behind Alexis as he and Achilles enter. All the animal protectors bristle, sensing imminent conflict. Alexis tries to de-escalate by falsely claiming that she forgives them, but Augustus launches himself at Achilles, engaging his mental powers. Kharon tackles the bandaged Patro to the floor. The protectors join the chaos—the hellhounds tackle Achilles’s and Patro’s protectors, Nero and Poppae, while Poco hisses.

Kharon punches the marble floor instead of hitting Patro. Alexis feels a sharp pain in her own hand as if she threw the punch. When Augustus uses his power on Achilles, a stabbing migraine hits Alexis. Kharon accidentally elbows Alexis, and all three of them feel the pain simultaneously. Augustus realizes that their marriage bond connects them through physical pain. Kharon asks with horror if she can feel their pain. Alexis lies convincingly, saying that she can’t, to prevent them from coddling her. Both men are visibly relieved.

Patro apologizes to Alexis. She orders everyone to stop fighting, stating that she won’t be another reason for their violence. She calls her husbands “[m]isogynistic, cruel, hyperaggressive, despotic megalomaniacs” (171). In response, Fluffy Jr., Nyx, Poco, Hell, and Hound all abandon their owners to stand protectively beside Alexis. A hellhound speaks, stating that they will protect her. Augustus and Kharon watch with devastation as Alexis walks away with all their protectors.

Weeks later, in early June, Kharon trains obsessively at six o’clock in the morning, haunted by the fact that Alexis has not spoken a word to him or Augustus since the fight. Nights are spent watching her sleep; mornings are spent destroying punching bags. He reflects on preparations for the upcoming Spartan Games Competition, which allows only swords, daggers, and fists—no guns. He is grateful that Alexis supposedly cannot feel his chronic leg pain through their bond. After breaking a punching bag’s chain with a powerful kick, Augustus urgently summons him.

Augustus shows Kharon a grainy video filmed by humans during the Rome Titan attack. They watch as Alexis fights the winged Titans alone, protecting elderly civilians. They witness her impossible mid-air leap with a Titan, her attempt to save the injured Lucia, and her relentless attacks despite grievous wounds. The video shows hundreds of humans chanting “Angelus Romae” for her. Augustus calls her “perfect.”

Augustus then reveals that the Spartan Lifestyle Page is now filled with images and stories glorifying Alexis. They realize that everyone wants her and that they must earn her trust back. Augustus shows Kharon a sleek black box containing a custom gift he has procured for her. They resolve to win her back, knowing that they won’t survive if they fail.

After a punishing 16-hour run through the rain, Alexis limps into the villa. Augustus and Kharon ambush her in a corridor, offering her a gift in a black box. When she refuses and they insist while stalking toward her, she performs another panicked short-distance leap into Helen’s locked room. Kharon is instantly at the door, threatening her, while Augustus apologizes. She retreats to the bathroom, gets in the tub fully clothed, and unsuccessfully tries to control her blood powers.

Later, she finds that her husbands have left. She enters the adjoining room, where Ceres is asleep, surrounded by ancient books. Ceres awakens briefly and points to a note in one book: “Zeus + Vyco. Hercules? Assassination?” (187). The book’s text is in archaic symbols that only Ceres can read. Alexis realizes that Vyco is the man who claimed that she was attacked by Titans as a baby.

Returning to Helen’s room, Alexis finds Helen and Charlie asleep. She notes their growing closeness since they began attending classes together. She gets into bed and dreams of a grim reaper promising to return. She then wakes to find the door closing and thinks she saw a shadow. Poco climbs into bed with her, warding off her nightmares. A second knock wakes her—Patro is demanding to talk.

Annoyed by the betrayal in Rome, Alexis is reluctant to speak with Patro. When he threatens to wake the room, Helen awakens and threatens her to go to the hallway. There, she runs into Achilles, who blocks her path. She angrily signs to him that he should not have left her to die. He signs back, accusing her of hiding that she knew sign language, but he never apologizes. She tells him to get away.

Patro apologizes, but Alexis dismisses it. He and Achilles renew their offer to help break her marriage bond by using her powers to nearly kill Augustus and Kharon. When she refuses, Patro says they will do it for her. Alexis notices that the flames in the hellhound Hell’s eyes have turned from teal to red. Patro suddenly grabs her and uses a needle to draw a vial of her blood without consent. He tells her that she’ll thank them and warns her that Ceres is lying to her.

Alexis signs for him to stay away from Ceres. As Hell stalks toward them menacingly, she signs that they are both cowards. Achilles pulls Patro away, and they retreat into the shadows. Alexis returns to her room and cries, comforted by the animal protectors.

That same night, Augustus interrogates a captured Olympian doctor about the mutating Titans and then knocks him unconscious with his powers. His headache temporarily eases. He and Kharon leap to a trailer park in Montana to investigate Alexis’s past. They question locals, and a woman named Katie reveals that Alexis was a prodigy and that someone had threatened residents not to help her or Charlie. When Katie’s abusive husband tries to silence her, Augustus strikes him, accidentally killing him. Kharon gives Katie a Spartan gun and money for protection.

After killing several more abusive men, Augustus and Kharon learn that Alexis lived with supposed parents until her father killed her mother, leaving the children homeless. They encounter a man covered in satanic tattoos whose mind Augustus cannot penetrate—he has powerful, animalistic mental defenses. The man leaps away before they can capture him. Augustus identifies him as an ancient creature, though they don’t know why such a being would live there.

They leap to the only human prison in the Northern Hemisphere and interrogate Alexis’s stepfather, who bragged about hurting her as a child. They bring him to the villa dungeon and, despite overwhelming urges to kill him, decide to earn Alexis’s trust by letting her choose his fate. Kharon’s “madness” nearly overwhelms him, and Augustus has to physically comfort him.

In the hallway the next day, they attempt to act casual when they encounter Alexis, Helen, and their fellow students Drex and Charlie. Kharon presents Alexis with their gift—a custom-made graphing calculator with a recorder and bulletproof titanium case engraved with her name. Alexis smiles genuinely for the first time in weeks and thanks them, easing Augustus’s headache. After she leaves, Kharon reveals that he used his powers to learn that Achilles and Patro plan to take Alexis from them.

The next morning, one day before the Spartan Games Competition’s initiation massacre, Alexis wakes to find Ceres surrounded by ancient books, excitedly pointing out a rare symbol in a House of Zeus tome. Ceres believes that it confirms her theory that Zeus was involved in both Alexis’s disappearance as a baby and Ceres’s memory loss. Hours later, Ceres shows Alexis a crude drawing resembling a caduceus with wings, saying that it matters tonight. The symbol seems familiar to Alexis. Abruptly, Ceres crumples the paper. When Alexis questions her, Ceres acts confused. Alexis picks up the paper, but it is now blank. Deeply unsettled, Ceres urges Alexis to trust her perceptions and believe in herself.

Alexis retreats to her room and records a diary entry on her new calculator, which Kharon had a microphone built into to record her observations. She discusses Ceres acting strangely and feeling like she is “crazy.” Then, a servant summons her to an urgent meeting in the dining room. The room is dark, and Augustus and Kharon wait at the table. When they step aside, she sees Achilles and Patro bound and gagged to chairs with silver restraints.

Kharon orders Alexis to sit, threatening to cut off Achilles’s ear to avenge his abandonment of her in Rome if she refuses. Their commands anger her, so she threatens them with Nyx, who becomes visible, coiled around Alexis’s arm with her fangs bared. The room freezes. Augustus identifies Nyx not as a snake but as a venomous echidna, pointed at them like a weapon.