Elspeth reaches New Capenna expecting recognition and finds only distance. The old world she remembers is buried beneath a city stacked into three social layers. The Riveteers keep Caldaia's engines and construction alive, ordinary commerce crowds the Mezzio and the wealthiest citizens rise to Park Heights. Movement between those levels is possible, but never neutral; every lift, station and workplace sits inside a family's sphere of influence.
The Brokers turn law into binding obligation, the Obscura trade in information, the Maestros pair cultural preservation with assassination, the Cabaretti make celebration a form of recruitment and the Riveteers organize labor through strength and solidarity. Their rivalries are restrained by habit rather than peace. As the supply of Halo contracts, each family prepares to secure whatever remains before its neighbors can do the same.
Elspeth keeps her head down, taking work and listening for traces of the history Ajani described. Violence at a tailor's shop makes anonymity impossible. She drives away Maestro enforcers who are collecting a debt and attracts the attention of Anhelo, Xander's lieutenant. His offer of a place among the Maestros is dangerous, but their museum contains records of the old city and images of angels fighting enemies Elspeth recognizes as Phyrexians.
Elsewhere, the Cabaretti prepare the Crescendo around a carefully guarded teenager named Giada. Jinnie Fay speaks of the girl as someone cherished by the family, yet Giada cannot leave without permission. The contradiction is New Capenna in miniature: luxury disguises confinement, generosity creates debt and a person can be praised as the future while being denied control of her own life.