During Harrow's first weeks on the Mithraeum, Harrow creates a revised cipher and begins recording secret assessments of the Lyctors. Harrow's notes on Ianthe are brief and hostile: Ianthe is untrustworthy and suspects Harrow of madness. Harrow links that suspicion to Harrow's own mistake involving Cytherea's corpse.

Cytherea's body has been placed in a small mortuary chamber near the central residential atrium, surrounded by undying candles and unfading roses that Harrow attributes to God's power. Harrow repeatedly feels that the corpse's position has changed or that its fingers and toes are moving, but when Harrow voices concern, God gently denies that anyone would touch Cytherea and suggests avoiding the room. Later, when Harrow asks Ianthe whether Ianthe hears sounds from inside, Ianthe says no and addresses Harrow as if Harrow is unstable, confirming Harrow's fear that Ianthe thinks Harrow mad.

Harrow's larger notes focus on Augustine, whom Harrow questions directly for biographical details. Augustine cheerfully reveals that his cavalier Alfred was also his brother, leading Harrow to record that Augustine killed his own sibling. Harrow judges Augustine charming but emotionally hollow, and then witnesses a private confrontation between Augustine and Mercymorn in which Augustine accuses Mercy of returning to dangerous old behavior, warns Mercy away from Cytherea's body, and cruelly tells Mercy that John no longer truly needs Mercy.

Augustine favors Ianthe, which irritates Harrow, and Ianthe deliberately cultivates Augustine's attention because it may help Ianthe survive the coming Resurrection Beast. In sword training, Augustine criticizes Ianthe's handling of the rapier and says Ianthe must stop imposing herself over her cavalier's learned skill. When Harrow mocks Ianthe's deference, Ianthe answers pragmatically that shame is a privilege and that both new Lyctors are vulnerable puppies surrounded by wolves.

God directs Harrow and Ianthe to study spirit magic with Augustine, the Mithraeum's current expert on Resurrection Beasts. Augustine explains that revenants and Resurrection Beasts can inhabit things thanergetically connected to their deaths, that Resurrection Beasts grow by consuming planets, and that Number Seven attacks through monstrous Heralds while its essential self remains in the River. God and Augustine explain the battle plan: the Lyctors' bodies and cavaliers face the Heralds, while the necromancers project into the River to weaken and exorcise the Beast's soul into the abyss, though Augustine admits they can only hope it stays there.