Clare discovers Axel's ninety-nine love letters and a decade of promises have been burned. Axel gives her the East City villa papers to sign, calls the transfer temporary—"a month at most, maybe less"—and says he'll return "when I get tired of her." He then announces he's leaving on a trip with Emma and won't be coming back. Clare, who remembers him kneeling in the snow for her mother's approval, says "It's nothing" and holds the deed, faced with whether to sign and accept his sudden absence.