We open this chapter with the cover art showing Iris finishing her cleanup of the apartment and having a drink. Along with Drake in her apartment bathroom starting to undress.

The next page shows Drake taking off his braies (medieval boxers) and dropping them on top of his other soiled clothes. That last piece ends up covering up a smattering of shiny objects that fell out of his other clothes.

He is annoyed by how much the simple act of undressing is causing him so much pain.

Iris returns to the living room to continue cleaning up her apartment while Drake figures out how to use the shower. She hums to herself as she works.

Meanwhile, in an undisclosed location elsewhere:
An alarm beep echoes down a vacant dorm hallway. The sound reaches the pointed ears of a red-haired woman sleeping beside the computer that is making the noise.

She sits up, silences the alarm, and checks the readouts on both of the monitors. A smile of excitement grows on her face and reveals her long fangs. The information of the graphs and numbers seems to be something she had been waiting for. She leaves the room in a hurry and slams the door shut behind her.

One of the screens shows a map of California with a big red circle blinking over a particular spot.

Drake removes his soiled gambeson with relative ease, but he doubles over in pain as he attempts to remove his shin plates. He has to catch himself on Iris' dining table. Drake is becoming frustrated with how feeble he has become.

Though she is surprised at the uniqueness of Drake's shirt, Iris suggests that he sit down and offers to take the shin plates off for him. Drake snaps at her, but she plays it off with a silly gesture and a promise to be gentler this time.

Drake sighs and resigns himself to her help. He plops down in one of the chairs and allow Iris to remove the final armor pieces from him. She notes to herself how freezing Drake's feet are and that he seems to be mentally distant.

Once the shin guards are removed and added to the armor pile, Iris stands and begins the search for her first-aid kit. During her search, Drake asks Iris why she would go so far for a stranger.

Iris claims to be doing good like anyone else would do, but Drake remarks that that is not the case where he is from. Drake mentions that people usually want something in return for any good deed done, but Iris denies him. She wants nothing in return. She explains that she was just trying to roll with the changes as they happened. She says that her brain going into a disassociated emergency mode led them to their current circumstances.

She finally finds the first-aid kit under the kitchen sink and drops it on the counter. Her dirty fingers leave nasty smears all over the plastic box. Noticing this, she realizes that she needs to be cleaned off. Not just her, but she stares at Drake and makes the assessment that he should probably take a shower first.

Iris offers to have Drake use the shower first so that he is cleaner for when she treats his wounds. He agrees and she leads him to her bathroom.
Once there, she presents the shower to him. He has no idea how such a thing works, so Iris offers an explanation.

Drake remains fairly confused but claims to understand anyway. The Iris leaves him on his own in the bathroom to go clean up the apartment some more.

Iris opens the door and walks into the apartment. She performs her usual home routine of turning on lights, kicking off shoes, hanging keys, and dumping her bag on the floor. Iris is happy to be home.

She calls out for Drake who has yet to follow her inside. He is leaning on the railing just outside preoccupied with internal thoughts. He seems out of breath and dizzy.
Iris shouts for him again. As he comes back to his senses and crosses the threshold, a few unseen magic threads follow him in.

Iris tries to welcome Drake in with a friendly presentation, but the apartment is a mess. Trash, dishes, and discarded clothes are strewn about. Drake looks unimpressed at best.

Iris quickly switches to cleaning up what she can. She suggests Drake get comfortable and remove his heavy armor. She asks if he needs help doing so, but he declines her assistance, so she returns to cleaning.

Drake gets permission to set his gear down on the newly cleared dining table. First, he lays the borrowed blanket over a chair. Then he starts the well practiced task of removing his gear one bit at a time.

The area where his torso is injured twinges with increasing intensity as he moves around. Iris notices that he is in pain and volunteers to help him remove his chest plate. Unfortunately, her hands are not strong enough to unlatch the wet leather straps, so her efforts only yank Drake around.

Drake puts a hand over her struggling ones and pleads for her to stop. Iris pulls her hands away and Drake resumes removing the last piece of armor through gritted teeth.
Once free of the heavy metal, he shakes out his rain soaked hair. Iris protests and compares him to a wet dog.

We open this chapter with Iris anxiously tapping on her steering wheel. Her car is now parked in the carport for her apartment complex. She is hesitating to wake Drake from his slumber in her back seat. Iris knows that she can't wait forever, so she heads over to the back seat and gently rouses Drake.

In his groggy state he has difficulty unlatching his seatbelt. Luckily a certain magic thread sneaks in to help him out.

Iris asks Drake to follow her up to her place just across the way. At first, Drake follows willingly. But he quickly realizes that Iris' home was not the destination that was agreed upon and he becomes suspicious of Iris' intentions fort him.

He questions Iris about what led to this outcome. Iris hesitates and his tone grows agitated. Drake accuses Iris of trickery and commands her to explain herself. So, Iris shouts and flails about as she tells the story of the many road closures that led them to end up at her house.

Iris promises to take Drake to the doctor like she intended to as soon as the weather clears up. Drake is skeptical, but satisfied enough with her answer to calm down.

Iris suggests they hurry to get out of the rain. Both of them are soaked in rain again and Iris complains about not wanting to get sick. At this point she is shivering and her lips have grown pale.

Drake was also starting to shiver, so he agrees to follow her up to her apartment.
One of Iris' neighbors stares at him from the window as they walk past. Drake complains to himself that he usually tries to avoid new people to avoid mean looking stares.

They arrive at Iris' door and she unlocks it with her keys.

Drake confessed that he is a dragon. Iris assumed that he was joking and laughs off her anxiety. Drake insists on his sincerity and is in-fact not human.

Iris started to get frustrated, thinking that his joke was going too far on someone who was only trying to help him. She is distracted by threatening to throw him out of her car if he didn't cooperate.
With some unseen magical interference, she barely slammed on the breaks in time to not collide with an accident that was blocking part of the road.

Slowly the perspective shifts to that of the magical interloper. It watched Iris and Drake restart their trek and revealed its knowledge of Iris' plan. With deft motions the creature's hands grabbed onto a bundle of magical string in order to meddle with the scene. It pulled the strings taught in its many hands like oh so many puppet strings and laughed. A half-hearted apology left its mouth as it made sure that every route to the medical center was impassable.

Iris was forced to try route after route until time finally ran out. Drake had fallen asleep and Iris made the decision to bring the strange man home with her for now.

She hoped that she wouldn't come to regret this choice.

The magical interloper, now revealed to be a giant moth-like creature, assured that despite the interference they are actually trying to help.