Osrik visits a city plant shop seeking yellow bells for Rissa’s bedside. The shopkeeper informs him she does not carry them because they are unpopular and poisonous. Frustrated, Osrik yanks the door so hard the bell rips off. He takes it with him, trying not to see it as a bad omen.

Returning to the castle, Osrik encounters Polly leaving Rissa’s room in tears. She tells him she can no longer watch Rissa dying and leaves her. Angered, Osrik enters to find Hojat, who gently tells him that death is imminent. Hojat and a novice leave Osrik alone to say goodbye.

Osrik places the shop bell on Rissa’s bedside. He listens to her wheezing breaths, struck by the terrifying reality that she is dying. He angrily prays to the gods. He cries and kisses her forehead, grieving that they didn’t have more time.

Malina recalls her mother’s funeral, when her father scolded her for crying and showing weakness. In the present, during a snowstorm, Malina kneels at Highbell’s bridge entrance, using her new ice magic to form bricks. Dommik silently stacks them into a wall throughout the night.

By morning, Highbell citizens gather and verbally abuse Malina, accusing her of trapping them. When they threaten to destroy the wall, she freezes the ground to keep them away. Nearly collapsing from exhaustion, Dommik catches her. She adds ice spikes atop the wall and warns the crowd about the approaching fae army, but they refuse to believe her.

Dommik shadow-leaps them to the bridge’s other side. When Malina insists he check the fae’s location, he is reluctant to leave her. They flirt, with him pressing his dagger suggestively against her before departing. She continues fortifying the bridge entrance with ice and spikes. After finishing, she collapses.

Dommik wakes Malina; she collapsed from magical exhaustion. Angry, they argue until he kisses her passionately. Though terrified of being hurt emotionally again, Malina kisses him back.

Dommik reveals the fae will arrive by nightfall. After making her eat jerky and drink water, he takes her through Highbell, where she creates smaller ice barriers on strategic streets. Citizens either flee or attack her for walling them in.

At the main bridge entrance, they find Queen Kaila and her soldiers destroying Malina’s wall. Kaila sits on the ice bricks like a throne, receiving offerings. When Malina confronts her, Kaila orders guards to seize them. Suddenly, the fae army appears across the chasm. Kaila uses her voice magic to amplify a fae commander ordering the charge.

Purple lightning strikes the crowd, leaving charred bodies. Shockwaves knock everyone down, causing a stampede. Malina begs Kaila to help direct the fleeing people to Pillar Row. After another strike, Kaila mounts her timberwing but, instead of helping, abandons the city entirely. Her remaining guards fight over the other timberwings; one falls to his death. As the fae army approaches, Malina refuses Dommik’s plea to flee. She runs to the wall and slams her hands against it, resolved to stay and defend her people.

Amid chaos, Malina uses magic to seal the gap in the ice wall. She rallies Kaila’s abandoned guards, but it is a Highbell guard who steps forward to take her orders, with the other Highbell guards joining him. She instructs them to direct the crowd to Pillar Row and the Pitching Pines. A lightning strike lands dangerously close.

Fae archers loose arrows into the city. Dommik shields Malina and himself with shadows as arrows land at their feet, while many fleeing citizens are struck down. As a second volley approaches, Malina instinctively creates a curved ice shield overhead, blocking the arrows. A crying girl with an arrow in her leg grabs Malina’s skirt. After removing the arrow, Malina orders Dommik to take the child home and find her mother. He makes her promise to flee once the fae cross, then vanishes.

The fae charge the bridge but slip on ice, creating a pileup. A single fae soldier calmly walks forward, breathing fire to melt the ice. The army follows. Malina’s attempt to destroy the stone bridge with an ice mallet fails. The fire fae reaches the wall and begins melting it. Malina holds position, but he breaks through, taunts her, and licks her cheek. As he prepares to burn her, Dommik appears and slits his throat. The fae army roars in fury and charges through the broken wall.

Dommik shadow-leaps them to an alleyway. Overwhelmed, Malina has a breakdown, screaming at Dommik that he should have killed her in Seventh Kingdom, preventing the invasion. She shoves his dagger into his hands, pleading for death. He refuses and tells her she does not truly want to die. He affirms their romantic connection and claims her as his.

His words ignite a passionate encounter. They have rough, dominant sex against the alley wall. The experience grounds Malina. Though guilty for their indulgence, Dommik insists that, if they die, they should die feeling alive. He confirms he got the little girl home.

Malina asks Dommik to take her to the shanties. They leap into mayhem with people fleeing and buildings exploding. Malina uses magic to freeze falling debris, saving those below it. Malina attacks fae with an ice battering ram while Dommik kills survivors. She creates another ice wall to block more fae. As she turns to call for Dommik, a fae soldier punches her unconscious.

Auren, Emonie, and Lerana arrive at Lord Cull’s estate disguised by glamour magic. They notice a second, damaged manor on the property but enter the newer one. Lerana informs them that Cull’s Orean servants have had their tongues cut out. At the servant’s entrance, a fae named Velida reveals Cull is unexpectedly returning for supper, but it would be suspicious for Emonie and Auren to leave now. Lerana departs, leaving them to their mission.

Inside, Auren sees two Orean cooks who avoid eye contact. Velida assigns Emonie to linen duty and Auren to floor scrubbing. In the dining room and grand hall, which are filled with frightening sculptures, they set the table and clean. Auren notices Emonie is strained from maintaining the glamour.

They search the ground and second floors separately but find only empty rooms. Velida discovers them upstairs and scolds them. She sends Auren to the washroom to clean chamber pots. Auren tries speaking to an Orean cook again, but the woman flees. A rude fae worker in the washroom mentions this manor has plumbing, revealing the chamber pots came from elsewhere. Auren realizes the pots must be from the old manor, concluding the Oreans must be held there. Seeing the disgusting task as her access route, she resolves to clean them.

After finishing the chamber pots, Auren checks on Emonie but finds her still working under Velida’s supervision. Deciding to go alone, she wraps the clean pots in a tablecloth and heads to the old manor. The damaged building is eerie and unsettling.

Two red-and-black-clad guards open the locked front door. They recoil at the chamber pots and allow her inside, telling her to be quick. She passes a strange stone wall reinforced with iron strips. When she touches it, her gold-touch emerges, and the rot within it tries to dig through the stone. Her magic resists being called back, connecting to whatever lies beyond.

Unsettled, Auren heads upstairs and searches dusty, abandoned rooms. The farther from the wall she moves, the calmer her magic becomes. In a parlor, another lounging guard grudgingly unlocks a door for her, disgusted by the chamber pots. He shoves her inside and locks the door behind her. In the dark room, Auren finds the new Oreans.