48: STRAWBERRY

While recovering in a hospital from a self-inflicted wound, the pregnant woman must navigate both her recovery and her hidden theft. When a visitor arrives bearing poisoned jam, both she and the visitor collapse, forcing a revelation of her greatest secret to save her life.

After two days in a hospital in the city of a place called, she waits and continues to draw, observing the symbolheads that now frequently appear in her sketches. She reflects on the impossibility of telling her mentor about her strange experience using an object she stole, fearing discovery. The king arrives to visit and suggests she return home to her family, offering an explanation for leaving her studies. Shortly after, her mentor enters, and the two engage in banter about apologies before the mentor gifts her a blank book belonging to a religious sect that values continued inquiry. A young man named visits with jam that smells wrong. When tasted, it proves to be poisoned, causing both him and the protagonist to collapse. As the mentor recognizes the poisoning and calls for a specific stone to perform a dangerous healing procedure, the protagonist realizes she must reveal her hidden theft—a golden object she removes from her safepouch just as consciousness fades. The mentor gasps upon seeing it, and a burst of warmth and pain floods through the protagonist as something occurs, leaving her screaming before everything goes black.