Chapter Summaries

Meyers stayed with Agnes in the Ascending Bright’s intensive care ward, where Agnes woke from a nightmare and learned she had been seriously injured. Agnes questioned why the ship had an unfamiliar ward, and a crew member told her to stay alive and take her time finding out what else she did not know.

• Ligo lamented that Chiba had taken a box containing embarrassing history, while Hesta doubted its contents would be interesting.
• Pujina escorted Meyers to the medical deck and left her in Agnes’s room with instructions to call the crew if Agnes was in danger.
• Agnes became distressed in her sleep, so Meyers rang the emergency bell and crew members helped wake her.
• Agnes comforted the tearful Meyers and said she no longer needed scissors because she had already cut off the hand from her recurring nightmare.
• Agnes learned that she was aboard the Ascending Bright in its intensive care ward and that her shoulder injury was serious.
• A crew member told Agnes to rest and stay alive so she could take her time discovering what else she did not know.

Silei discovered that her wounds had healed far too quickly aboard the Alecto and suspected the crew member was hiding the truth. Meanwhile, Hesta questioned Ligo about an old abuse case and the punishment for harming a much younger recruit.

• A crew member woke Silei during a storm and secured her to her bed, but Silei noticed her burns had mostly healed.
• The crew member claimed the rapid healing was due to differences between districts and brought Silei Golden Gardenia flowers from Nurse Island.
• Silei recalled Stella’s story about Golden Gardenia and suspected the flowers had been placed aboard because someone wanted them, possibly because there was no one outside to see them.
• At two in the morning, Hesta asked Ligo about a training officer who had harassed a sixteen-year-old Quicksilver Needles recruit.
• Ligo said a training officer involved with a twelve- or thirteen-year-old would have to be arrested and sentenced.

Silei escaped the medical area and headed to meet Anna as Hesta and Ligo began acting during the storm. Anna told Silei she would not regret saving people, but Silei said she regretted letting some passengers board the ship.

• Ligo told Hesta the base would not show leniency toward an adult who pursued a twelve- or thirteen-year-old, and the ship suddenly lurched in the storm.
• At 2:15, Silei left her room after the medical staff’s final check, retrieved her empty sidearm, and slipped out through the emergency stairwell.
• Silei overheard crew members discussing Hesta and Ligo’s disappearance and learned they were heading to the bow Observation Deck.
• Anna learned that rescue ships might arrive one or two hours late and arranged for Silei to come meet her.
• Silei found Anna in the darkened restaurant, and they argued about whether saving the passengers had been a mistake.

Anna spoke with Silei about the ship, her past, and the kind of society AHgAs represented, while Silei challenged Anna’s treatment of the passengers. Anna ended by suggesting that creating a better world required reducing the number of men.

• Silei urged Anna to stop abusing the passengers and let them face an investigation ashore, but Anna said the ship’s events were unimportant and revealed she had witnessed what happened aboard the Supreme Praise.
• Anna asked Silei whether her life had become happier after joining AHgAs, and Silei said she preferred her life after joining.
• Anna described AHgAs’s growing share of female employees as a sign of progress and asked whether Silei wanted to live in such a world.
• Silei insisted that AHgAs did not slaughter civilians or let one person decide who lived or died, and Anna said a better world required fewer men.

Anna revealed to Silei that she had been shackled for inciting rebellion and crimes against humanity, then had her stunned and returned to the ward. Later, Tasia led the passengers and soldiers out of Bishop Restaurant toward the Observation Deck, warning that the deck would be sealed off and incinerated when rescue ships arrived.

• Anna told Silei that her shackles were punishment for inciting rebellion and crimes against humanity.
• Pujina shocked Silei and dragged her away after she grabbed Anna's ankle.
• A broadcast warned crew members to reach the final assembly point, waking the passengers in Bishop Restaurant.
• Tasia arrived and urged everyone to go to the Observation Deck, saying United Government rescue ships were coming and the deck would be incinerated.
• Tasia confessed that her hesitation had led to Philip's death and called on the passengers to rely on one another.
• The passengers and soldiers followed Tasia toward the stairwell and the first deck.

Tasia led the passengers to a hall near the Observation Deck and used an independent searchlight system to signal the rescue team, but Pujina appeared and revealed that the passengers were still in danger. Meanwhile, Ligo and Hesta found Jacqueline injured and confused on the Sixth Deck and considered taking her to Silei.

• Tasia brought the passengers to a hall near the Observation Deck and had a soldier activate the ship's independent searchlights.
• Tasia explained that she had overheard crew members discussing the rescue and urged everyone to wait for help.
• As Tasia prepared to return to the Fourth Deck for Fionn, the hall lights came on and Pujina appeared, thanking Tasia for gathering the passengers.
• Ligo and Hesta searched the Sixth Deck dining hall and found Jacqueline hiding there, stabbing her foot with a fork and muttering about the Grace Theater.
• Hesta and Ligo restrained Jacqueline, and Hesta wondered whether they should take her to Silei.

Tasia survived the massacre on the first deck and realized Anna had orchestrated it, while Anna praised her for leading the others out of Bishop Restaurant. Hesta and Ligo freed Silei from the Special Care Ward, and Silei warned them that Anna was going to escape.

• Pujina’s crew killed the last passenger on the first deck, and Tasia tried to hurt herself before the crew restrained her.
• Anna confronted Tasia, revealed she had met Tasia’s father, and said Tasia had survived and led everyone out of Bishop Restaurant.
• Pujina helped Tasia breathe after she collapsed, and Anna ordered that Tasia be taken to a lounge before being sent back to Bishop Restaurant.
• Hesta and Ligo found Silei bound and gagged in her ward, then freed her and learned Anna had restrained her.
• Silei said Anna had injected her with something and warned Hesta and Ligo that Anna was going to escape.

Silei, Hesta, and Ligo searched for Anna after Silei reported Anna’s apparent farewell and confession, while Anna went to the Navigation Museum to meet Chiba. Anna and Chiba revisited their past as the storm battered the ship.

• Silei told Hesta and Ligo that Anna had confessed to crimes and wished her a happy life, and they went to investigate where they had last met her.
• Hesta noticed that the place smelled strongly of blood, though Silei could not smell it.
• Anna told Pujina to leave her alone and went to the Navigation Museum on the Seventh Deck.
• Anna’s umbrella was swept away by the storm, but her wheelchair carried her into the museum, where she found Chiba.
• Anna and Chiba discussed Chiba’s past trip, Ava’s reprimand, and why Anna had not joined her.

Anna and Chiba confronted the guilt and resentment surrounding their past, then each declined the other's offer to leave together. Elsewhere, Hesta, Ligo, and Silei searched another empty deck for the missing crew.

• Chiba challenged Anna's claim that she had been imprisoned against her will and accused her of punishing herself over their past.
• Anna asked Chiba to leave with her, but Chiba asked the same of Anna; both refused because they still had things to do.
• Chiba left Anna alone at Alecto's display, and Anna admitted to herself that she was foolish.
• Hesta, Ligo, and Silei found no crew members on the second deck below and decided to search upward one level at a time.
• Silei asked Ligo about her raven tattoo, and Ligo shared a story about ravens holding grudges as they reached the next level.

Silei, Hesta, and Ligo found the injured Gustav and let him accompany them through the ship. Gopelin visited Agnes and Meyers, announced that rescue was coming, and told Agnes that Buli was alive; Tasia was also told they would soon return to land.

• Silei, Hesta, and Ligo found Gustav bound and injured in a cabinet, and he explained how he had escaped after seeing people handle body bags.
• Gustav begged to stay with the group, and Ligo agreed to let him follow them despite their injuries.
• Gopelin visited Agnes and Meyers in the Special Care Ward and said the rescue team would arrive soon and they could leave that night.
• Agnes confessed that she had killed Buli, but Gopelin told her Buli was alive.
• Crew members told Tasia that she would soon return to land with her companions.

Tasia reached Bishop Restaurant expecting to find her companions, but she recognized the people inside as impostors and tried to escape. Government rescuers arrived by helicopter, while the others dismissed her warnings as hallucinations and prepared to transfer everyone to a rescue ship.

• Tasia followed the crew to Bishop Restaurant after hearing that a rescue ship was nearby.
• Tasia saw Dietrich, Philip, Gustav, and Fionn inside and insisted they were impostors, then tried to flee.
• Fionn restrained Tasia as the restaurant unfolded beyond the ship's hull to receive four government soldiers by rope.
• Tasia shouted that the people inside were impostors and begged the rescuers not to let them ashore.
• Buli told the lead government representative that Tasia was struggling to distinguish reality from hallucinations, and the man said they would register the situation before deciding what to do.

As rescuers prepared to evacuate the passengers, Pujina tried to trade the group’s Gustav for another copy, but Ligo attacked and captured her. Anna learned that Hesta wanted to meet her and chose to remain in the museum for now.

• A rescue team checked on the passengers in Bishop Restaurant and ordered them to stay put while its members went to the medical room.
• Hesta, Ligo, Silei, and Gustav encountered Pujina on the Second Deck, where she offered to replace their damaged Gustav with another copy.
• Ligo and Hesta appeared to accept the trade, but Ligo suddenly attacked Pujina, dismantled her, and asked where Anna was.
• Pujina said Anna was holding a gathering on the Night Banquet deck and offered to reveal Anna’s location to Hesta alone.
• Zero told Anna that the rescue team planned to evacuate Bo Shanfu and the restaurant passengers, and that Hesta wanted to meet her; Anna stayed in the museum.

Silei and Ligo dealt with Pujina’s remains and a copy of Gustav, while Hesta suspected the ship’s survivors were being replicated. Hesta returned to the Navigation Museum to confront Anna, who revealed that Zero and Pujina had arranged their meeting.

• Silei inspected Pujina’s remains as Gustav screamed that the other Gustav was a clone and revealed Helen had taken him for a physical after the Night Banquet.
• The copy of Gustav injured his own eye to imitate Gustav, then withdrew into the darkness after Silei warned him to stay away.
• Hesta realized other people might have been copied and returned to the Navigation Museum, telling Ligo to seek Chiba if she did not come back within half an hour.
• Hesta found Anna in the Navigation Museum and asked why she had wanted to see her.
• Anna said Zero and Pujina had joined forces to bring Hesta to the museum, and Hesta asked whether Anna meant Robogriye when she spoke of her predecessors.

Anna explained that Robogriye hid the truth about the Night Banquets in their rules: passengers who attended were uploaded and made accessible to guardians on the Second Deck. As a rescue team entered the museum, Hesta blocked Anna’s escape and fought off an intruder, then lost Bullet Time when she saw the person’s face.

• Anna told Hesta that Robogriye used the nighttime rules to conceal the Night Banquet’s real danger and discourage passengers from questioning it.
• Anna revealed that banquet attendees were uploaded on the Fourth Deck and displayed on the Second Deck, where guardians could access them.
• Hesta challenged Anna to explain why she was fleeing the museum as the United Government rescue team arrived.
• Anna asked Zero to send someone to remove Hesta, and Hesta warned Anna that a fight could leave her injured.
• A crew member attacked Hesta, who fought back and tore off the intruder’s mask.
• Hesta recognized the intruder’s face and abruptly fell out of Bullet Time.

Anna defeated Hesta by exploiting her reaction to Liz’s face, then warned her to conceal her weaknesses. On the Second Deck, Silei and Ligo grew suspicious of the rescuers’ insistence that they leave and decided Gustav needed protection as a witness.

• Anna used Liz’s face to make Hesta lose control of her body, and her crew subdued Hesta.
• Hesta begged the crew member not to use Liz’s face, and the disguise changed to Hesta’s own face.
• Anna warned Hesta to hide her weakness as the crew member dragged her away for Chiba to collect.
• Two rescuers ordered Ligo and Silei to go to Bishop Restaurant, but they refused and questioned their account of the passengers’ condition.
• Silei noticed the rescuers were trying to drive them away and led Ligo toward the stairwell to contact Chiba.
• Silei asked Ligo to get Gustav safely onto the rescue ship as an important witness, and Ligo agreed to do what she could.

Gustav struggled to stay conscious as he followed Silei and Ligo upstairs, while rescuers searched the Ascending Bright and discovered that Anna Sokolova was still aboard. Chiba left Hesta in Ligo’s care, and the group brought her into Bishop Restaurant as the rescue operation continued.

• Gustav nearly fell but recovered, hid his injured eye, and followed Silei and Ligo upstairs while hoping to reach medical care.
• Soldiers searched the Ascending Bright and found Bernhard’s mutilated body with a blood-written message naming Anna Sokolova as the culprit.
• The rescuers realized Anna was still aboard and called the command center for immediate reinforcements.
• Ligo recognized Chiba, who carried the unconscious Hesta and said she had fallen out of Bullet Time; Chiba told Ligo to stay with the passengers during the rescue.
• Ligo and Silei placed Hesta in a wheelchair and wheeled her into Bishop Restaurant, followed by Gustav.

Gustav fled Bishop Restaurant, convinced the people there were impostors, while Silei followed him and tried to bring him back. As armed forces stormed the ship, Gustav confessed his fears and asked Silei to believe him, but soldiers shot him; Silei was pulled from the window and plunged into the sea.

• Gustav recognized the supposedly dead people in Bishop Restaurant and ran away, insisting they were fake.
• Silei chased Gustav through the corridor while Ligo stayed behind with Hesta.
• Gustav climbed outside the ship and edged along a narrow ledge, mistaking patrol craft for rescue while armed soldiers boarded the vessel.
• Silei reached for Gustav as he admitted he was guilty and asked whether she believed him, and Silei said she did.
• Soldiers shot Gustav, who fell to the deck, while someone lifted Silei away from the window and into the sea.

After a hidden black aircraft tore free from the Ascending Bright, the cruisers fired at it, but it vanished before the shells could hit. As Hesta and Ligo evacuated, Hesta secretly signed the passenger list with her red Adjudicator’s pen.

• Hesta told Ligo that Anna had ambushed her, while the passengers learned that a strange space lay above the Sixth Deck.
• A violent vibration split the Ascending Bright, revealing a colossal black aircraft hidden between the Sixth and Seventh Decks.
• Hesta and Ligo saw cruisers prepare to fire at the aircraft, which flickered and disappeared as the shells passed through it.
• Soldiers evacuated the passengers to the cruisers, and an officer told Buli that Gopelin and Robogriye were receiving treatment aboard the Lancelot.
• Hesta secretly signed the evacuation list with the red fountain pen reserved for Adjudicators.

After boarding, Ligo and Hesta witnessed Agnes’s breakdown and learned that the Night Banquet had caused disorientation and hallucinations. They discovered Rene and Gustav were missing from the survivors’ list, then wondered what Miss Chiba had planned and whether to expose her.

• Ligo and Hesta left their private tearoom and saw Agnes being taken away on a stretcher while Meyers described her breakdown to a recorder.
• Meyers told the recorder that the Night Banquet had made her and Tasia unable to recognize faces or find their way, and that Agnes had attended it the previous night.
• Ligo recognized Qin among the doctors, and Hesta noticed that Rene and Gustav were circled on the survivor list because neither had boarded the ship.
• Hesta and Ligo realized Rene’s absence was connected to his death and Gustav’s absence explained the gunshots at Bishop Restaurant.
• On the open deck, Hesta wondered what Miss Chiba had been trying to accomplish, and Ligo joked that she would soon help them align their stories.

Chiba asked Silei to keep the events aboard the Ascending Bright from being dredged up, and Silei agreed while insisting she would truthfully report what she had witnessed. As Chiba met with three naval officers, Hesta reflected on her own progress and felt the gap between herself and Chiba.

• Chiba asked Silei to leave the ship’s events in the past, and Silei promised to keep them from resurfacing while recording her observations honestly.
• Chiba left Silei and brought Ligo and Hesta to a conference hall beneath the ship.
• Three elderly naval officers arrived, and Chiba began a serious discussion with them.
• Hesta watched Chiba negotiate and compared Chiba’s accomplishments at age twenty with her own.
• Ligo reassured Hesta that she was doing well, and Hesta closed her eyes and breathed in rhythm with her.