While working in the quarry, Étienne witnesses a partial collapse that severely injures another worker. His associate, Jean-Luc, remarks that the man had been asking too many questions. Stricken with guilt over his complicity in the dangerous operation, Étienne reflects on the precarious future he is building for his young wards, Thomas and Marie. He decides he cannot continue on this path. Two nights later, Étienne quits his illicit job, accepting the potential consequences in order to clear his conscience.

During a period of respite, Alouette observes the superioress in an orchard, tending to a crooked sapling. The superioress tells Alouette that she, too, had a difficult start in life and remarks that “Everything worth keeping must be tended. Sometimes at all costs” (289). Later, Marguerite finds Alouette in the garden and asks if she has seen Christiane, who was meant to bring yarrow to the infirmary but never arrived. They suspect an guard named Pierre, who was seen leaving his post early. They find Christiane hiding, her clothes torn and her throat bruised from an assault. Christiane refuses to report the attack, convinced that no one would believe or care about her.

After the Brodskys are arrested, their concierge, Madame Gagnon, takes the key to their apartment from an officer. The family is put on a standard green-and-cream municipal bus with other Jewish neighbors. On the bus, Rald comforts another frightened child by telling her they are going to “Pitchipoi,” a mythical safe place. Sasha recognizes this as a fantasy to cope with the terrifying reality of their situation.

From a distance, Kristof watches helplessly as French police take the Brodskys away. After the transport pulls away, he returns to his apartment, overwhelmed with guilt for having downplayed the danger and for not having done more to help them. The powerlessness reminds him of the despair he felt after his sister Annelies’s death, suspected to be by suicide. He begins drinking, trying to process the fact that the French authorities are responsible for the mass arrests happening across the city.

Sasha and her family are taken to a local public swimming pool, or piscine, which now is a makeshift holding pen. The pool has been drained and is crowded with over a hundred Jewish people from their neighborhood. An officer Sasha recognizes from her building, Monsieur Mercier, processes them without any sign of recognition. Soon after, an announcement is made that all French children between the ages of 14 and 18 will be released. Maman insists that Sasha go, pushing her toward the ladder and telling her to seek safety with Kristof. Reluctantly, Sasha leaves her family behind. She walks through the streets and, finding his apartment empty, waits for him by his door, alone and desolate.

In November, a severe storm hits Salpêtrière, threatening to flood the grounds; only a small levee along the Ivry Plain separates it from the Seine. The institution is already dangerously overcrowded with women who have been arrested under a new royal decree. Christiane’s health has deteriorated, and she has a severe, persistent cough. Alouette, now visibly pregnant, tries to conceal her condition. She has a nightmare that the Bièvre floods and threatens to drown her and her unborn child, waking to find that their cell floor is already covered in water. An alarm bell rings.

The floodwaters at Salpêtrière wash away the earth around an old well, uncovering the skull of a child. The discovery prompts Sylvine to voice her suspicion that the hospital secretly kills and buries infants born to its inmates, despite official claims that the babies are sent to wet nurses. A hospital official publicly dismisses the discovery as part of an old cemetery. Alouette notices Marguerite secretly documenting abuses in a small ledger. Marguerite confides that she is recording the crimes of the physician and others. The two women form a silent pact of resistance.

Alouette learns from gossip that Marguerite has been caught with her ledger and sentenced to 10 days in the isolation cells. The superioress delivers a sermon calling the women’s suffering a divine test and dismissing their fears as falsehoods. When Marguerite returns from her punishment, she is gaunt, withdrawn, and refuses to speak of her experience. Consumed with guilt but fearful for her unborn child, Alouette says aloud that the physician is not untouchable. Marguerite follows her gaze to the shelves of poisons and nods.

Kristof returns to his apartment building and finds the concierge, Madame Gagnon, looting the Brodskys’ home under the pretense of taking inventory. She reveals she has seen Sasha at his door and threatens to inform the authorities. Kristof finds Sasha huddled by his door. He brings her inside, adds a few drops of valerian from a small bottle to her water glass, and listens as she recounts being separated from her family at the piscine. Aware that Madame Gagnon could report them at any moment, Kristof knows they cannot stay.

Looking out of Kristof’s window, Sasha spots three other teenagers on the street below: Maurice from her school, Gérard, and another student named Annette Gaston. Gérard sees Sasha and signals to her. Kristof agrees to bring them upstairs, where they reveal that their families were also taken in the morning’s arrests. Kristof gives the four teenagers food and resolves to lead them all to a more secure location.

Kristof leads Sasha and her three friends through back streets to a hidden entrance to the souterrain. He guides them to a small safe room and then proceeds to a larger, fortified bunker to find his friend and Resistance contact, Alesander. Kristof finds Alesander wearing his Vichy uniform, a pistol held casually at his side. Kristof explains the situation, but Alesander dismisses his desperate idea of rescuing the families from the piscine as a “suicide mission.” Instead, Alesander agrees to help the teenagers, viewing their plight as an opportunity to establish and test a new underground escape route out of France.

After leaving the teenagers with Alesander, Kristof heads back to his apartment for supplies but is intercepted by Ursula. She warns him that he cannot return home or to the hospital, as SS and Gestapo agents are waiting for him at both locations. She reveals that their Resistance network at Sainte-Anne’s has been betrayed by an informant, leading to the arrest of Julian. Overwhelmed by despair and guilt, Kristof briefly contemplates a suicidal act of protest. Ursula calms him, advising that in a tragedy, the most heroic act is to do “the next right thing.” (339) Kristof realizes his most immediate duty is to protect Sasha and the other children.

Christiane’s illness worsens until she is too weak to work. She tells Alouette she is tired of suffering and that no treatments help her anymore. Alouette urges her to rest, hoping she can recover but, later, finds Christiane with a delirious fever. In her final moments, Christiane opens her palm to reveal the remnants of foxglove, and speaks of beauty being the most dangerous thing and of being set free. She dies as Alouette holds her.

While grieving Christiane’s death, Alouette is sent to retrieve administrative ledgers from a flooded building. From a high window, she sees that the flood has unearthed a mass grave of infants on the asylum grounds. In one of the ledgers, she finds meticulous records of these infant deaths, disguised as stillbirths, with each entry authorized by the superioress’s signature. Alouette takes the ledger as proof of infanticide. From the same window, recalling her father’s words about following the Bièvre to the sea, she spots a stone culvert at the base of the levee, its iron grate broken away, as a viable escape route. She shows the ledger to Marguerite and proposes they escape through the culvert and use the book to expose the hospital’s crimes.

Alouette recruits Sylvine to join her and Marguerite. Sylvine is hesitant at first, reminding Alouette that a previous inmate was caught trying to scale the wall and sent to the brutal La Force prison. However, Alouette explains their plan to escape through the river culvert and presents the superioress’s ledger to Sylvine. Alouette suggests they take the evidence to the Sisters of Saint Catherine, a charitable order who might be persuaded to intervene. Hoping for justice, Sylvine agrees to join them.