On a sweltering morning, Vis meets Kadmos for lessons and thanks him for his care while Vis was unconscious. Vis describes the earlier visit from Sextus Gaius Valerius and the collection of samples. Kadmos is appalled, insisting such materials are useless to medicine or Will-work, and offers to investigate through Sytrecian contacts, which Vis declines to avoid trouble.

Prompted by mention of Sytrece, Vis asks about Kadmos’s past. Kadmos shares that he briefly led the Azriat Institute before the proscriptions following Erimides’s failed revolt, was seized despite innocence, and survived by submitting to the Hierarchy. He shows faded scars from refusing the Aurora Columnae and argues for survival over futile resistance. Vis realizes Kadmos believes Vis made a similar choice at the naumachia, even as Vis rejects that path internally.

They return to study; Kadmos praises Vis’s progress. An Octavii delivers a letter from Lady Relucia Telimus, who has heard of the naumachia and may return early. The matter is set aside, and preparations for the Academy continue.

Two weeks pass in focused training, learning, and Labyrinth practice. The Anguis issue no reprisals after Melior’s death, though Vis’s nights are haunted by blood-soaked nightmares that gradually dull with exhaustion.

On the morning of departure, Lanistia reports that Ulciscor has arranged Vis’s attendance at the Festival of the Ancestors at the Necropolis—the next time he will be permitted to leave the Academy. She identifies the students from the Transvect incident: Indol Quiscil, Belli Volenis, and Emissa Corenius—Class Three elites from Military families and thus unlikely tools of Veridius. Lanistia, terse but encouraging, tells Vis his task is to reach Class Three. After a final spar—punctuated by Lanistia casually flooring him—Vis leaves Villa Telimus by carriage, feeling the loss of a hard-won sanctuary and the weight of what awaits at the Academy.