Chapter 11

Raeve returns to her hidden quarters after a dangerous mission, exhausted and bloodied. She and her housemate Essi share a meal, during which Essi reveals she has been crafting a protective diamond cap for Raeve's tooth and needs rare spangle feces to complete it. The chapter explores the complicated, emotionally restrained relationship between the two women as Essi expresses concern about Raeve's safety while being hunted by Rekk Zharos, and Raeve retreats into her private suite, wrestled by conflicting feelings about accepting Essi's care and love.

Raeve descends through a hidden window into her and Essi's shared quarters, which are built into a rock formation. Essi has prepared buttermin loaf with bogsberry preserve—Raeve's favorite—though she pretends indifference to Raeve's wellbeing. Raeve recounts that her recent mission 'got messy' and involved blood. Essi reveals she has been working on a diamond cap for Raeve's tooth that will emit an invisible protective barrier around her head and chest. When Raeve mentions she retrieved what Essi requested, Essi becomes upset that there is no spangle feces in the bag. She explains that the ore in spangle droppings is crucial for binding the runed cap to Raeve's tooth. Raeve is disgusted to learn that the adhesive holding her other activation cap came from spangle feces. Raeve dismisses the urgency, noting she must wait for a message from Sereme before going to the Undercity to collect it. When Essi expresses worry about Raeve's safety given Rekk Zharos is hunting her and calls Raeve her only family, Raeve abruptly retreats to her private suite below, unable to process emotional vulnerability. In her sparse room decorated only with coal drawings of moons on the ceiling, Raeve cleans her feathers and boots, then opens a wooden box containing Nee, a small living message-creature with parchment wings. Nee carries a five-phase-old message of three words that was never meant for Raeve but that she keeps anyway; the creature became attached to her after trying to reach its true recipient. Raeve reflects on her inability to accept love, comparing her safe, distant affection for the moons to the fragile, terrifying prospect of truly loving Essi. She settles to sleep while holding Nee, wrestling with guilt over her emotional withdrawal from Essi.