A surprise for Romyn and Paul! As cats leap and escape the dungeon, Paul recognizes and explains this is the weaker Winters who stands before them. Romyn is educated the Taryn disappeared for a year and returned with a mistress, a personal guard, a young ward, a cat and one less eye.
Paul takes it upon himself to see if he can pay his way out by telling the last whereabouts of Sansregret, but his charm doesn't work on Taryn. He's going to help the troublemakers out anyway, except the door flies off unexpectedly.
Taryn wonders why they didn't just do that in the first place, but Romyn didn't want to interfere with Paul's plan.