Harrowhark tries to fill in practical notes about Mercymorn the First, but Mercymorn refuses to give her House name and reacts with contempt. Augustine is equally unhelpful, claiming not to remember it and suggesting that Mercy may not have had one, since the Lyctors were resurrected and gathered across staggered generations.

Augustine explains that he and Alfred were early enough to help found the Fifth’s Koniortos Court, while later Lyctors like Cytherea came from later House developments. God clarifies that the Lyctoral titles were meant to describe cavaliers rather than their necromancers: Alfred for patience, Pyrrha for duty, and Cristabel Oct for joy.

When Harrowhark mentions Cristabel Oct to Mercymorn, Mercymorn reacts with violent grief and rage, warning Harrow never to use Cristabel’s name with her. Augustine, meanwhile, calls Cristabel a delight while also mocking her intelligence, revealing both affection and longstanding friction around Mercy’s cavalier.

Harrowhark then evaluates Mercymorn’s true strength: not a unique theorem, but an exhaustive ten-thousand-year mastery of anatomy. Because Lyctoral perception fails when looking directly at another Lyctor, most Lyctors must use touch, effort, and knowledge to target a body; Mercymorn’s memorized precision lets her locate and exploit organs and structures almost instantly.

At dinner, Harrowhark asks Augustine why he has not learned anatomy the same way. Augustine dismisses it as too narrow, then pointedly says it would only be useful for killing Lyctors, something the others supposedly never cared to do; the remark disturbs the table. Harrowhark reflects that Mithraeum life is materially comfortable, but her two central problems remain: she is not a normal Lyctor, and Ortus the First, Saint of Duty, wants her dead.