During Harrow's solitary work on the thalergy-rich planet, Harrow realizes a living presence is following her through the forest. Expecting an animal predator, Harrow waits in a clearing, but the follower is Camilla Hect, whom Harrow believes she previously saw dead. Harrow's body reacts violently to the contradiction, bleeding from her ears, nose, and eyes.

Harrow's prepared letters include one for Camilla, promising aid in return for prior service to Harrow's House. Camilla destroys the letter after reading it and lets Harrow test her reality by attacking and dismantling one of Harrow's skeleton constructs. Camilla explains that Camilla came to find Harrow and presents a carefully reassembled fragment of Palamedes Sextus's skull.

Camilla says Palamedes deliberately fixed his soul to his remains as a revenant and asks Harrow only to confirm whether Camilla recovered the right piece. Harrow cannot detect Palamedes, partly because Harrow lacks confidence in her spirit magic, so Harrow enters the River using the skull fragment as an anchor. Instead of ordinary River waters, Harrow arrives in a small Canaan House room: the space Palamedes preserved from the moment of his death.

Palamedes explains that he anchored himself to tiny remnants of his body, creating a limited pocket near the Riverbank. The pocket contains only what Palamedes saw when he died, leaving Palamedes trapped for what he learns has been eight months. Palamedes is relieved Camilla is alive, but he is disturbed when Harrow says she became a Lyctor by making her cavalier the furnace of her power.

The room suddenly changes as thunder, rain, and lightning appear, and Harrow and Palamedes see the Sleeper outside with a two-bore gun. Palamedes concludes Harrow has brought something into the fragile pocket that is altering its rules and urges Harrow to leave. As the Sleeper forces the door, Palamedes asks what bone fragment Camilla has, tells Harrow to make it into something articulating, kisses Harrow's brow, and sends Harrow back before the gunshot.

After leaving, the narration reflects that Harrow has mistaken herself for the center of the mystery and failed to see what mattered. The final line reveals that Palamedes had seen the hidden narrator-presence associated with Harrow.