Time passes and winter arrives. Tally makes her hand cold by pressing it to the window and then presses it against Zane’s face to wake him up. He turns off the lights as he wakes, making Tally worry about his new, chronic headaches. As Tally tries to get Zane out of bed, she examines her interface cuff, which has no seams and no way to remove it. She notes that it gets looser every day and implies that she and Zane have not been eating in order to get the cuffs off. Tally asks for coffee and presses her cold hand to Zane’s chest, finally waking him up. Tally has the wall make their ice-skating clothes and takes Zane his coffee. The two get dressed and descend, and it is only when they are outside that they wrap their cuffs in layers of clothes to muffle their voices and talk about important matters.

It has been a month since taking the experimental pills. The morning she and Zane took the pills, the Specials interrogated them and collected evidence. When Tally ate breakfast, her bubbliness wore off, and she was taken to the hospital to have the scar above her eye removed.