Anyone want to storm the castle? What about if, instead of an army, we just have an elf, a fairy, two Dracona, an ambitious young Taka, a wizard, and a couple motivated revolutionaries? Still wanna do it? GOOD. Then come with us…

Pax and Phaedra explore the area where thousands of Taka are being held. It is shocking because no one thought any of them were left, and also because they were loved—not creatures that would be put in cages.

They hide when they hear people coming. One of them is Lysanthir, one of the queen’s main magicians. Then they see the machine that has been processing the Taka. It pulls out their magic and blood, leaving them as the wizened wraiths that everyone thought were just like rats. Phaedra realizes that this is what Freyal must have seen, and what he was killed for.

Phaedra says they have to tell everyone. But then Lysanthir finds them. He magically binds them and is about to put them in his machine when the queen shows up. Phaedra confronts her over what she has done. The queen defends her actions, saying the city was running out of magic and if she didn’t use the Taka’s magic, the city’s infrastructure would have collapsed, hurting the most vulnerable citizens the most.

There is a flashback to the queen meeting Freyal. She says she knows that he saw the Taka machine, and he admits it. She says she loves him, but kills him.

Back in the present, Phaedra says it wasn’t the queen’s dagger that killed him, it was the poison. The queen doesn’t know what she’s talking about and confronts Lysanthir.

He admits that he had followed the queen when she met Freyal. He hears Freyal tell Dace that he is going to poison himself because he knows that Phaedra will realize something weird is going on. He had originally thought about suicide after finding out about the Taka but changed his mind. But now that he’s stabbed he knows it’s the only way to get Phaedra to investigate his death. He tells her to hide with Renna. However, after he dies, she is despondent and drinks the poison too.

The queen screams at Lysanthir for eavesdropping and then disposing of the bodies.

Phaedra and Pax get out of the machine. Phinneas, Valaki, Ividor, and Valorie show up and attack. They blast the machine but it’s not quite destroyed.

Phaedra and Pax argue about whether they should destroy the machine--Phaedra thinks its innately wrong to have a society based on draining the Taka like this but Pax is concerned about all the people it will hurt to stop it.

Phaedra ignores him and moves forward. Her mom shows up to help. She gets blasted, as does Ividor. A stray blast from Lysanthir knocks Phaedra off the cliff into the Taka blood pool. One of the maids is there and casts a spell. Phaedra’s innate Dracona lineage activates and her wings grow to their full span. She flies up and blasts the machine.

Explosions start going off everywhere. Pax is distraught to think of the side effects on the city and leaves her. The captured Taka all escape to the surface.

The city is engulfed in fires and floods.