Liff wakes from her recurring dream of an empty Landfall, now more frequent and unsettling than before. The dream is overlaid with another memory-like experience: two birdlike figures whispering impossible knowledge about an icy mirror-world, a dying town, and ravens that preserved a kind of humanity after humans were gone. Liff also senses the Wolf not as an external creature but as something woven through Imir, Landfall, and her own dreams.

Because the voices have told Liff to bring the Witch someone who does not fit Landfall's pattern, Liff uses an errand to town as cover and goes to Fabian's Fix-it shop. Miranda answers the door, and Liff directly asks whether Miranda and the others are Seccers. Miranda denies it but speaks uneasily about why Landfall may need to imagine hidden enemies. Liff glimpses a possible violent future in which a mob hangs outsiders, then asks Miranda to come meet the Witch.

Miranda doubts that a witch exists, but Liff insists she has met one and that the Witch wants the people who do not fit. Liff is distressed by contradictory memories of the Witch, her grandfather, the birds, and events that cannot all be true. Miranda, concerned for Liff, agrees to go. They climb into the dangerous Afterstorm hills through rain, mud, and landslide-prone woods until Liff finds the cave.

The Witch appears with the two birds, and Miranda recognizes her with confusion, calling her Kern. The Witch attempts an "extraction" but angrily rejects Miranda as insufficient, demanding to know where "the rest" is. As the weather violently responds to the Witch's anger, the Witch blames Miranda for keeping them there and explains that the environment favors those who occupy disproportionate space.

Liff demands the return of her grandfather, Heorest Holt, whom she believes the Witch promised as payment. The Witch denies making the promise, while the birds admit it was Liff's price. Miranda and the Witch realize Liff means Holt the Founder from the Enkidu, which is impossible because Landfall was founded almost two centuries earlier. Liff is torn between memories of Holt as her grandfather and knowledge that she could never have known him, then flees in fury and confusion.

Miranda pursues Liff down the hill while the birds try to stop her, but the storm and unstable ground worsen. Liff sees another vision of Miranda being hanged, recoils from Miranda's outstretched hand, then tries too late to reach for it. A landslip tears the hillside away beneath Liff, burying her in mud, branches, stones, and darkness.