This chapter opens with a description of the war, which destroyed the frivolity of the city, but did not destroy everything. Colonel Anuwat is in the city because of the half-wolf, but he is not sure why he is there. He tells her that she is more than just a mission, but that he needs her. She reminds him of the past, when she was starving and she possessed bodies, not her own. She tells him that the past was where he enslaved and transported people to this world. She asks him if he has had his own reconciliation with the baronees, and he replies that he has not. He asks her if she has had her own, and she replies that she has not, and that he should have warned the wolf. She says that she did warn him, but she did not tell him why she is not protecting her now. She adds that the blood serves one mistress, and it is not hers. He is the forgiving type, and so she asks him why he does not protect her now, when the wolf is coming after him again. He says that he and the barons were friends, and they were not enemies, but not everything could be forgiven. He reminds her that the puppies drowned in the flood, but they are related by blood, and if she trusts him, he will tell her what he knows of the weapon, the black claw, that destroyed the city. He adds that it was one of her qualities that she loved about him, in moderation. She curses the witches who tried to kill her with hate, and the airships that pushed the city from the walls of ravenna, curse those witches. The chapter ends with an account of the rebirth that took place after the war. From the darkness they emerged reborn inside new selves, and their enemies who thought them dead fled from their rebirth, in despair, at having made them stronger.