Stephen guides Grace out of the reception hall into a cooler corridor after a priest of the Forge God directs him to a hidden door behind a screen. He holds her, conflicted by his attraction and noticing the cedar scent of her hair. He considers kissing her but stops himself. When Marguerite appears with water, she sizes up Stephen, calling him Grace’s paladin. Grace mentions her corset is too tight. She wants to leave but must avoid Lady Vance. Stephen devises a plan using back corridors.

As they follow him, Grace reflects on her attraction to Stephen. They round a corner and discover a dead guard lying in a pool of blood with his neck at a grotesque angle, and a terrified young man slumped against a doorframe who immediately confesses he did not mean to kill the guard.

Stephen uses a calm voice to talk to the young assassin, who sobs he was only supposed to knock the guard unconscious as part of a plot where no one was meant to die. The boy recognizes the Saint of Steel’s sigil, panics, and takes a poison pill. Grace warns Stephen, but the boy bites down before he can intervene. As the boy dies in Stephen’s arms, confused that the poison hurts, Marguerite identifies the substance in the pill as a blowfish-liver poison delivered in a glass pill.

Stephen reveals he recognized the boy from the Hanged Motherhood’s guard train. Marguerite searches the body, finding a signet ring and a bundle of papers that she considers dangerous evidence. She takes them despite Stephen’s attempt to stop her. At Grace’s insistence, he releases Marguerite, who tells him she is not his enemy and instructs him to meet at Grace’s shop later. Stephen agrees and remains with the bodies.

Stephen waits briefly to give Grace and Marguerite time to escape before raising the alarm, then endures two hours of official questioning, avoiding mention of Grace and Marguerite or his recognition of the assassin. Released to Bishop Beartongue, he gives a full report to Beartongue, István, and Shane in a carriage, including the details he withheld from the Archon’s guards. They discuss several theories for the staged assassination attempt, including disrupting the trade deal or allowing the Motherhood to gain the Archon’s favor. Beartongue decides Stephen should continue cooperating with Marguerite because he already has contact with her and Grace, despite his protests that he is unqualified.

Grace wakes near noon with a headache from the previous night’s memory fugue after witnessing the assassination attempt. She finds Stephen waiting in her workshop, having entered through the unlocked door four hours earlier. When she accidentally sets her sleeve on fire, Stephen alerts her. Embarrassed about his help the previous night, Grace tells him she does not need saving. Stephen clarifies he is there to meet Marguerite about papers she took from the dead assassin, mortifying Grace.

Her pet civette, Tab, befriends Stephen. Grace explains Tab’s history and talks at length about collecting his musk, and the conversation establishes an easy rapport between them. Stephen voices suspicion Marguerite might have fled; Grace defends her friend. Stephen reveals he omitted them from his report. When Grace hands him tea, their hands touch, causing her to blush. She retreats to work while Stephen knits quietly. Grace finds the companionable silence surprisingly peaceful.

Marguerite presents the evidence she took from the assassin’s body: a signet ring from Anuket City’s senate and papers outlining an assassination plot. She notes the ring did not fit the boy and admits she has several upstairs, as they are easy to acquire. Marguerite argues the evidence is too blatant and may have been planted to implicate Anuket City. Grace suggests it could be a double bluff. Drawing on perfumers’ secretive practices with coded recipes, she argues that conspirators would normally disguise written information instead of leaving it transparent. Marguerite concedes the point.

Before leaving, Marguerite departs for another meeting, after which Stephen asks to smell the Crown Prince’s perfume. Grace applies the amber and ginger scent to his wrist in a charged moment. After he leaves, Grace reflects on her attraction and her past with Phillip, which left her feeling sexually inadequate. She concludes Stephen is not interested and tries to forget him.

That night, Stephen lies in bed thinking about Grace, recalling her statement about not needing rescue. He fantasizes about her but fights his feelings, believing his lust is dangerous because it is too close to the berserker “battle tide” that paladins struggle to control. He reflects on the paladin’s rule of service and protection. He tells himself Grace is a master craftsman who sells to nobility while he is a former paladin whose god has died who knits socks. He resolves to remove himself from her life once the investigation ends and return to serving the Temple of the Rat. Unable to sleep, he goes to the training salle to exhaust himself and hopes physical exertion will clear his thoughts of her perfume.

Stephen meets with Bishop Beartongue, István, Zale (one of the Rat’s holy lawyers), and an unnamed blonde woman introduced as an associate of the Rat. He reports on Marguerite and the suspicious evidence found on the assassin, including the signet ring and papers. They discuss the possibility that the Hanged Motherhood may be attempting to implicate Anuket City, though the situation remains uncertain. The blonde questions Grace’s innocence; Stephen defends her, and Beartongue trusts his judgment, calling him honest, trustworthy, and unimaginative—a compliment in intelligence work. Beartongue confirms that cooperating with Marguerite is his top priority. István later remarks that the blonde appears to be an assassin, and says the temple’s healer, Brother Francis, requested Stephen for an escort.

After a week of torrential rain causes severe flooding, Grace worries about Stephen and donates a week’s profits to the Temple of the Rat’s relief efforts. She prepares strong aromatic compounds to mask the coming stench. Stephen arrives, sent by Marguerite, and gives Grace socks he knitted. Deeply touched, Grace recounts her harsh apprenticeship under a cruel master who threatened to mutilate her to protect his secrets. Stephen is horrified.

Stephen shares how he became a paladin. As a young soldier fighting the Wheatshield cult, the Saint of Steel’s battle tide unexpectedly took him mid-battle. He had no choice but to join the order to control the uncontrollable battle tide. He speaks wistfully of when the god directed their rage before dying. Their conversation is interrupted when the front door suddenly bangs open.

Marguerite leads them by carriage to a building in the Walled City containing the old wine cellars used for autopsies. They meet Doctor Piper performing an autopsy on a woman who died in childbirth. The sight and smell make Grace ill; Stephen comforts her. In his office, Piper reveals the young assassin had been poisoned long before taking the suicide pill—his stomach was badly damaged and his extremities blue from a different poison. He was dying already, never meant to survive or be captured. A Motherhood physician observed and tried to dismiss this evidence.

Stephen asks about the Weaver’s Nest Headsman, a killer leaving severed heads around the city, but learns nothing. As they leave, Grace asks if the childbirth victim’s baby survived. Piper says yes. Stephen observes Grace glance at Marguerite, who relaxes at the news. As they depart, Stephen silently confirms with Piper that the baby actually died and thanks him for the compassionate lie.