Liff leaves Miranda’s farmhouse and closes the door behind her, despite the mud-figure of Erma Lante moving toward the doorway. Outside, the rain falls over a garden torn up like a battlefield, filled with malformed mud figures that stare, sway, crouch, and writhe. Liff avoids touching them, recognizing their misery and fragmentation.

In the garden, the Witch waits with a bird clutched in each hand. Liff shouts for Avrana Kern to stop hurting Miranda. Kern replies that the mud figures are all Miranda, and that Kern needs every fragment of Miranda gathered together so Kern can escape her current existence.

Liff confronts Kern and asks who Kern is. Kern names herself as Avrana Kern, older than Heorest Holt’s departure from Earth, a creator of worlds, a former god, and someone with responsibilities. Kern says Kern must gather her crew, a concept Liff can understand through stories of Holt and his companions.

Liff realizes that Kern needs Liff’s help, though Kern denies it. The birds contradict Kern, and Liff insists Kern must stop hurting Miranda before Liff will cooperate. Liff sees that the golems are lost fragments and that, beneath Kern’s harshness, Kern is driven by loss, need, and duty.

Liff decides to leave and walk home to Liff’s parents, forcing aside the fractures in Liff’s own mind in order to protect Miranda. Kern angrily insists that Kern does not need Liff, but as Liff walks into the night, Kern calls for Liff to come back, unable or unwilling to ask politely.