Dawn-dark interior of the Question Garden. Iron trellises, black stone basins, glass vials, and red wax seals glow under cold blue lamps. Yelena prepares the second chemical technique under guard supervision.

Yelena calibrates the drug while the guards watch. She explains the legality and safety of the technique aloud for the record.

Cassian is visible at the interrogation table, watching Yelena rather than the drug. His face is bruised but alert.

Yelena lays out the rules before administration. Cassian tests the boundaries, and Yelena answers plainly.

Cassian chooses to drink. Yelena administers the diluted drug with careful control.

The low-dose truth drug begins affecting Cassian. Yelena monitors and records physical signs rather than rushing the interrogation.

Yelena begins the regicide sequence again, starting with Cassian’s location on the night of the murder.

Cassian reveals he heard a child crying near the royal corridor. Yelena pauses on the word child.

Cassian describes the scent of wintergreen oil, and Yelena connects it to both the royal nursery and Garden compounds.

Yelena pushes Cassian to identify what he saw. He admits seeing a cloak clasped with the lion-and-key sigil but refuses to overstate it.

Yelena believes Cassian is close to naming the killer. Cassian refuses, saying an unsupported name would endanger someone else.

The drug increases Cassian’s physical distress. Yelena checks whether his refusal is evasion or physical risk and gives him water.

Cassian claims his nightly question early, while the drug is still active. Yelena warns him that the Garden’s rhythm does not allow it yet.

Cassian asks whether there is a hidden child whose name Yelena’s patron does not want her to know. The question triggers a visual impression of a nursery without revealing the child’s face.

Yelena cannot answer without exposing that she does not know. She chooses refusal, but it is clearly fear rather than pride.

Cassian explains why a hidden name matters. Yelena orders him to stop, shaken by how practical the warning is.

Yelena ends the session early by citing chemical reaction procedure. The guards notice the abnormal timing.

The guards prepare Cassian for recovery watch. Cassian leaves Yelena with one practical direction, not an answer.

Late that night, Yelena is alone. The question keeps her awake, and she moves toward the private archive.

Yelena enters the private archive after hours, loosening her formal uniform and removing her gloves.

Yelena pulls nursery supply records and finds wintergreen oil deliveries routed to both the nursery wing and Garden stores.

Yelena examines sealed warrants unrelated to Cassian’s case, aware that she is crossing a line by searching outside her mandate.

The chapter ends with Yelena’s hand hovering over the old Garden intake ledger from nine years ago, just before she opens it.