In the months after Harrowhark’s conversation with God, the Body remains Harrowhark’s main consolation at the Mithraeum. The Body appears in bloodstained First House robes, moves through Harrowhark’s empty quarters, and kneels before the mummified dead in the station’s corridors and apses. Harrowhark takes comfort from the Body’s presence and begins dreaming of the Body with uncanny consistency.

In these dreams, Harrowhark returns to her childhood bed in Drearburh’s sanctuary. The Body sits opposite the cot with closed eyes and folded hands, and Harrowhark confesses her fears. When Harrowhark says she is afraid to die, the Body interprets that fear as a fear of failure: Harrowhark believes her life carries a debt that death might not repay.

Across other dreams, Harrowhark admits that she fears herself, madness, Cytherea the First, and God. The Body sometimes answers and sometimes remains silent. When the Body speaks of death, she appears uncertain and says she died once, then corrects herself to twice, but gives no further explanation.

Harrowhark eventually asks whether she has Ortus Nigenad’s eyes and what her own eyes used to look like. This time the Body answers that “she” asked the Body not to tell Harrowhark. Harrowhark wakes on the floor screaming, then studies her bloodshot eyes in the mirror and tries to compare them with Ortus’s black eyes. Unable to remember a difference, Harrowhark feels both relieved and deeply frightened.