Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, death, and sexual content.

Isolde cannot bear to hear anything else that Lothian attempts to say. She wonders if Adrian knows that her mother’s people are enslaved by Gheroghe, so she rushes to find him. In Adrian’s room, she finds Safira naked in his bed. Safira tells Isolde that she has spent the last three nights being intimate with Adrian, and this enrages Isolde, who finally finds Adrian in the council chamber. She demands to speak with him alone and asks him if he knows about her mother’s people. He admits that he does. Incandescent with rage, Isolde asks him how he could do nothing to help them. She wants to invade Vela, but Adrian tells her that she must think strategically. He warns her not to sacrifice herself too easily for others but admits that he would sacrifice himself for her.

She asks him about Safira’s presence in his room, and Adrian tells her that Safira is lying; he has not been intimate with her. Adrian and Isolde return to his room to confront Safira, who claims that Isolde misunderstood her. This is a lie, so Adrian has Safira thrown in the dungeons for three nights.