Maggie visits Drigildarg, the city of the dead, with Everard to view the Butcher’s corpse. A guide leads them through pitch darkness to the Shears’ hidden morgue, where Everard encourages Maggie to stab the body to prove it cannot return to life. She does so and gains closure.

That night, armed intruders breach their house. Everard confronts nine attackers alone, and Gort and his sons rush out to help. One intruder, Dorr Tillmar, recognizes Gort and surrenders. Everard unleashes his Fatefire and kills the remaining eight, sparing Tillmar at Maggie’s request.

On the stairs afterward, Everard teases Maggie about her unbound hair. She confronts him about his possessiveness, realizing he has developed a new strategy to control her now that she is a Demarr. He formally introduces himself with all his titles. Maggie counters by revealing his future marriage to Omelyana of Gor and how he will manipulate her affections.

In the basement, Tillmar explains he was hired for a crew working for Hreban and surrendered because he could not fight Gort’s sons. He reveals his desperate situation: Blacklisted after the destruction of the Saubra Company, he cannot support his family or afford medicine for his sick daughter. He produces an unsigned contract from Hreban promising employment in exchange for absolute obedience and forfeiture of all rights. Maggie feels a strange, magical resistance when touching the signature line.

Tillmar reveals that Hreban now knows Maggie’s location but not her identity. Maggie offers him a job as a spy, instructing him to infiltrate the Redeemer Order and use a code phrase at Taryz Teahouse for future contact. Tillmar swears fealty to Everard, who accepts him into service and promises to protect his family.

Upstairs, Everard instructs Avaria, Solentine’s second-in-command, to stage bodies with Velpor’s corpse to frame Hreban for the Conqueror knight’s murder. Avaria also delivers an anonymous warning note that arrived before the attack. Maggie shows Everard Tillmar’s contract. They determine that it is magical, and they need a mage to identify the spell.

Maggie receives a request for help from Galiene, and she arranges to be picked up by the Shears. Everard secretly joins them. At the Garden, Galiene and her partner Hade explain that someone is leaking information to Hreban about their smuggled shipments of luxury goods for the Garden. She has three suspects: Wesla, Orrem, and Arale. Maggie asks to borrow the Garden’s mage, Ciste, as payment. She exonerates Orrem, exposes Wesla for petty theft, and identifies Arale as the traitor. Arale is brought in, confesses, and tries to justify herself by insulting Galiene. Hade orders her dealt with, and Ciste paralyzes her with magic.

In a private room, Ciste examines Hreban’s contract and identifies the spell as a life chain—an outlawed form of blood magic that kills the signer if the contract is destroyed. Possessing multiple such contracts is punishable by death. Maggie realizes that this is the proof needed to destroy Hreban. Afterward, she pays a contact to locate a red-haired woman with protective magic.

That evening, Digi Dareel, head of the Harzi clan, arrives for a secret meeting, offering a magical amulet in exchange for answers to three questions. The amulet will turn the wearer into the person that their target wants most to see for a short amount of time. Everard unexpectedly joins them. Maggie reveals which of Digi’s siblings share her biological father and confirms that Rogh Dareel, her mother’s husband, knows the truth. Digi explains that she has uncovered two crimes needed to accuse her stepfather of Blood-burning: poisoning her father and embezzlement. For her third question, she asks for a third crime.

Maggie provides coded instructions to meet a retainer named Amur and his grandfather at the Mountain Temple and asks about his dogs using a specific phrase. After Digi leaves, Maggie explains that Rogh Dareel once poisoned an entire kennel and paid with a numbered coin that proves his guilt. Everard is satisfied that Digi will succeed in overthrowing her stepfather.

Solentine arrives with a message: King Sauven has summoned Everard to Selva for a joedurar, a mandatory royal gathering. They realize it is an attempt to flush Everard out. He must leave immediately to reach Selva before the king’s messenger arrives, riding a drezmur—a giant magical beast that can fly there overnight but will devour him if his magic fails. Solentine has also been summoned by Sauven, and he requests a large batch of Maggie’s soap to send to her adoptive Demarr mother to help validate her identity.

Maggie learns that the king’s messenger is Joris—the man who poisons Everard in her original timeline—and rushes to warn him, providing explicit details about the poison and what to do if exposed. Everard promises to be careful. He pleads with Maggie to come to Selva for safety; she refuses, determined to prove that she can survive independently. He asks for a kiss for luck, and Maggie promises one if he returns safely. He mounts the beast and flies into the night.

Five days pass with no word from Everard. City Guards arrive at the house one day and take Maggie to the Southern Guard Station for questioning. At the station, Knight Captain Jehan attempts to intimidate her. Lord Bellen bursts in with two Defender Knights and aggressively intervenes, securing her release. During their journey, from a distance, they witness Archmage Damaes destroy a meteor from the Mage Tower with a powerful spell.

Bellen takes Maggie to the Defender Citadel, where he reveals that a child delivered an anonymous note alerting him to her arrest, with follow-up investigation pointing toward Hreban. He offers Maggie sanctuary at the Citadel and reveals a romantic interest in her. Maggie politely but firmly rebuffs his advances.

Will returns with information about the Butcher’s true identity: Serem Vor, a weaver’s son from Hreban’s domain who became a brutal knight on the southern border, earning the name Blood Reaper. He was stripped of his knighthood for slaughtering civilians against direct orders. His only friend from the army, Likatine of Praul Grast, now heads security at Castle Hreban—a direct link between the Butcher and Hreban.

Will and Lute formally pledge their loyalty to Maggie, separate from any oath to Everard. An invitation for Maggie to the joedurar arrives via arrow. Maggie realizes she must attend, as refusing a royal invitation would endanger the Demarrs. They determine that she must also learn formal dances and correct behavior in the 14 days before the event.

Maggie and Clover find and purchase a suitable gown for Maggie to wear at the joedurar. A child messenger instructs Maggie to come to a particular plaza that night. Maggie’s friend Darotha guides Maggie and her companions to an ancient, malevolent temple. A woman named Isadau, the red-haired woman Maggie wanted to locate, lies on the steps, trapped behind Damaes’s magical barrier. Maggie recites an incantation from the book to break the spell. The effort strains her severely and awakens a monstrous entity within the temple, which tries to force open the doors. Maggie forces herself to complete the incantation, freeing Isadau and slamming the doors shut. They rescue the unconscious woman and flee.

Back at the house, Maggie and Shana bathe the filthy Isadau, who suddenly awakens. She confirms that Damaes has kept her trapped for two years, and she notes that three misspellings in Maggie’s incantation should have killed her.

Erodel, a dapchel (transgender man) and ranowen (escort/bodyguard), arrives to teach Maggie the polhe—a ceremonial dance designed for private discussions in public settings. He emphasizes achieving casual ease so she will not stand out at the joedurar.

Isadau tests Maggie’s knowledge, then asks what she wants in return for her rescue. Maggie requests help breaking the magical seal on Hreban’s vault, which was created by Damaes himself. Isadau agrees, viewing an inevitable confrontation with Damaes as welcome. She reveals that her two years in a mindless state allowed her to accumulate immense magical reserves, and she wants to raid the vault immediately. Maggie insists that she wait three days to recover.

Maggie, Isadau, and their companions travel by boat to an island housing Hreban’s vault. Isadau breaks Damaes’s ward, giving them five minutes. As Kaiden picks the lock and they grab chests of scrolls, Damaes appears in the sky. Isadau faces Damaes in a magical duel, and the rest of the group escapes downstream.

Back at home, they sort through the loot. After finding only inert contracts for dead mercenaries, Kaiden discovers the Butcher’s contract, explicitly detailing the plan to assassinate the Sun Margrave. Isadau teleports in, declares the duel a draw, and retreats to recover for weeks.

The group then discovers a chest of dozens of active life-chain contracts binding influential people throughout the kingdom, including royal guards, officials, and a Justice Chamber prosecutor. Maggie confronts Avaria, Solentine’s second-in-command, who had been tasked with watching Maggie’s house. She points out that Avaria let armed men break into the house and a message arrive by arrow, which shouldn’t have happened on her watch. Maggie reveals her true identity as a former Crimson Empire spy and describes how she dies in the original future. Avaria, impressed, fully accepts Maggie and agrees to help research the names on the contracts.

Dressed for the joedurar, Maggie is escorted to Eagle Roost, where it is being held, by Erodel. Her guard inside is Matheo, who reveals that he sent the anonymous warning notes after seeing her in his farseeing visions. She warns him not to escort the Sun Margrave at the upcoming ceremony, but he insists it is his duty.

In the ballroom, Maggie spots Everard alive and well across the room. She is furious that neither he nor Solentine notified her of his safe return. As she tries to retreat, Lord Bellen appears and reveals himself as Lord Doran Arvel, head of the Defender Order. He announces Maggie as his guest before claiming the first dance. During the polhe, he reveals that he sent her invitation and has been investigating her, expressing his desire for a politically savvy wife. Maggie firmly rejects him, which only seems to intrigue him further.

During the partner switch, Silveren briefly dances with her and makes veiled threats. Solentine takes over and whisks her from the dance floor. They flee through the castle but are intercepted by Arvel. Solentine introduces Maggie as his cousin to establish boundaries, and Solentine’s cousin, her new adoptive “brother” Rumian, arrives to help them escape. Arvel watches, clearly undeterred.

Solentine and Rumian rush Maggie into her carriage, but Everard intercepts it with his Selvan knights. He orders Erodel out and climbs in to kiss her passionately. He takes her home and declares her under house arrest.

Maggie defies him, and the Magnar brothers side with her, refusing his orders. She accuses him of acting out of jealousy over Arvel and for failing to notify her that he was alive. He counters that he was protecting her from the danger Arvel created by making her a public figure, then declares she is already his.

A knight interrupts with news that Prince Kiel and Silveren are approaching. Everard makes a final declaration, promising to win her willingly, then leaves. Gort scolds his sons for their defiance, but they stand by their choice to serve Maggie.

The next morning, Arvel arrives and tells Maggie that he knows she is not a true Demarr. She presents family paintings as evidence, but he dismisses them, insulting her supposed father. Maggie feigns outrage and orders him to leave. He nearly unleashes his power, then restrains himself, apologizes, and departs—though clearly not deterred.

Maggie sends a coded message requesting an audience with the Sun Margrave. At the Justice Chamber, she presents all the evidence against Hreban: the life-chain contracts, background files, and the Butcher’s assassination contract. She warns the Sun Margrave that she has retained enough evidence to act if he fails to.

Three days later, Hreban is arrested but refuses to reveal Cai of Sunder’s location. Maggie visits him in the dungeon and offers his life in exchange for information. He admits he cannot call off the assassin because he has no control over him. He refuses to cooperate, preferring death to admitting defeat. Maggie proposes to the Sun Margrave that they use someone who is faster with a knife than Cai to counter him: her brother Rumian.

From an observation tower, Maggie watches the High Court opening ceremony. As the Sun Margrave’s procession crosses the courtyard, a guard lunges at him—Cai of Sunder. Rumian kills him with his banner spear before he can strike.

Immediately, a giant dursan lands in the courtyard, followed by a swarm of others. One is ridden by the man Maggie knows as Silveren. She realizes that he is actually Mirabor Savaric, seeking revenge for his mother’s execution and his father’s death. A massive battle erupts, with Everard, Bors, Arvel, and King Sauven each unleashing their powers.

Maggie and the Magnars run to offer the injured Sun Margrave sanctuary, but Silveren lands on the bridge and blocks their path. Maggie uses Digi’s amulet, which makes Silveren see her as his dead mother. She tries to persuade him to abandon his revenge, but his grief runs too deep. As the spell fails, she stabs him, and he collapses. His uncontrolled dursan turns on her, but Everard appears and cuts the beast down with Fatefire. They embrace and kiss on the bridge.

That night, Maggie reflects on the day. Silveren’s body has disappeared, which terrifies her. Matheo joins her; he is now carrying his father’s sword, gifted by Everard, and pledges his loyalty. He gives Maggie a velvet pouch from Everard. It contains a note saying he will see her tonight and the Everard family hair ornament, traditionally given to signify engagement.

As Maggie processes the implicit proposal, a magical song mesmerizes Clover, who stands dangerously on the wall’s edge. Silveren appears, alive and uninjured, and threatens to make Clover fall unless Maggie comes with him. Maggie complies to save her. She places Everard’s hair clip in her hair, and Silveren lifts her onto his dursan and flies off into the night.