At the workshop, LaCroque ends the workday at 7 PM. She lines up the girls to collect their finished lace patterns. When it is Fifi's turn to hand her lace pattern, LaCroque is angered, as Fifi's coughing has ruined the white lace, turning it yellow. Fifi apologizes meekly and begs for mercy, but it falls on deaf ears. As punishment, she assigns Fifi to only work with black lace, intending to make an example to her fellow slaves. Fifi sobs in despair and tells Madeline that working on black lace in the dark can cause blindness.

Hearing this injustice, Madeline stands up to LaCroque. Unfortunately, this only serves to further infuriate LaCroque who decides to lock Madeline into a detention room, before walking away with Henri, laughing at her. Madeline proceeds to remove a brick from the wall, allowing her to communicate with the other girls. She encourages them to escape. Fifi is not as optimistic, as she has already tried doing so, but failed. As a result, LaCroque cut her hair to make lace.

When Madeline asks how LaCroque's cruelty originated, Fifi proceeds to tell LaCroque's background story, that their taskmaster used to be a famous cabaret dancer. During one performance, she made an embarrassing mistake by accidentally ripping her dress while dancing and fell off the stage. She was publicly humiliated and stopped performing after that, before she sold her long hair to make lace. Like Madeline, the other factory workers are all orphans, and had neither money nor connections. LaCroque and Henri had lied to the courts, promising to take care of them, but instead treated them as slaves. Madeline tells the girls that while they are not bound by blood, they are still a family.

The next day, Madeline and the other factory slaves craft their own plans for damage. They reconfigure their lace patterns to create distress messages to customers. Unfortunately, LaCroque quickly catches on to their plan. After she and Henri leave, Madeline formulates a new plan and snatches some cheese from LaCroque's desk. She proceeds to pass the cheese to the other girls, before sewing bits of it into the lace. A mouse quickly takes interest, then bites into and rips up the threads. LaCroque sees this and becomes irritated. She demands to know who is messing with her operation, but since the mouse has eaten all the cheese, there is no evidence to pin the blame. However, she strongly suspects Madeline as the culprit.

Through following the trail of Madeline's necklace beads, Madeline's classmates along with Pepito, Madeline's pet dog Genevieve, and the police, find their way to the factory. Back at the lace store, a customer tells LaCroque that she wants red lace, which gives her the idea to shave off Madeline's hair. LaCroque then orders Henri to sell off Madeline's belongings.

In the cellar, Madeline and her new friends form a human pyramid in an attempt to escape through the window, however it is very difficult considering how small they are, Madeline was pretty close to the window as she looked down at fifi, who was looking at the girls in slight uncertainty.

Madeline: "fifi! We need you!" The small red-headed yelled out to fifi, who flinched as she looked up at her.

Fifi: "b-but I don't like heights..." Fifi said on fear as she looked up.

Madeline: "hurry! It is not so difficult!" Fifi sighed reluctantly at Madeline's reassuring words, feeling quite touched but she brushed those feelings aside as she began climbing, occasionally mumbling apologies to the girls on the way.

Madeline: "here... Take my hand." Fifi reached out as best as she could, Madeline opened the lock on the window as she began climbing out, fifi and the other girls doing the same one by one.

Now they successfully got out, the girls quickly run over to hide in a alleyway.

Madeline: "we're free! See? I told you doing it together would work." Madeline said to the other girls as fifi hugged her.

Heather: "but the thing is... Where shall we go?" The brown haired girl asked, unsure as she looked around.