In a retrospective account of Harrowhark’s first months as a Lyctor, the Mithraeum is described as God’s hidden seat far from Dominicus, built amid an asteroid field and saturated with preserved remains. Harrowhark lives in unused, sterile rooms assigned to a Lyctor who never occupied them, and she takes small comfort in their untouched order despite remaining helpless and unsettled.

The Mithraeum has no servants or constructs, so its immortal inhabitants handle their own food. Harrowhark notices that Mercymorn, Augustine, and God cook, while Augustine attempts to teach Ianthe. Harrowhark herself remains indifferent to eating and often encounters God in the kitchen or in his private sitting room, where he summons her for lessons, tea, or silent companionship.

During one meeting, Harrowhark finds God reviewing reports about the eighteen thousand and the radiation missiles. God says he suspects BOE, explaining that Blood of Eden is an anti-House, anti-necromancy insurgent organization that has operated against the Nine Houses for millennia. He also believes Blood of Eden somehow influenced Cytherea’s actions at Canaan House, though he frames Cytherea’s betrayal as partly rooted in exhaustion, underappreciation, and emotional pain.

God then questions Harrowhark about her family and her birth. Harrowhark admits that her parents killed 200 Ninth House children and used the resulting thanergy bloom to engineer her conception so she would be a necromancer. God recognizes the act as something nearly impossible, comparable in kind to resurrection, and calls Harrowhark a miracle while also acknowledging the atrocity that created her.

When Harrowhark asks God not to tell anyone, God reacts fiercely but protectively. He insists that no one has the right to blame or judge Harrowhark for her parents’ crime, pledges to mourn the dead and carry the stain as his own responsibility, and releases her from the fear that others must know. Harrowhark resolves privately that she will someday tell God about the Tomb as well, though the chapter ends with God explaining that Blood of Eden’s name refers to someone “they left to die” and warning that once someone turns away from something, they lose the right to claim ownership over it.