In the River bubble’s frozen lower facility, Abigail Pent prepares an exorcism around the Sleeper’s coffin with candles, chalk diagrams, and wards. Harrowhark helps while reflecting on the facility’s strange messages and on Ortus’s suggestion that her visions were not madness but pressure marks left on the mind. Dulcie Septimus, now no longer using her breathing tube, explains that the ghosts partly enforce their own rules here and tells Harrow how Cytherea killed Protesilaus and questioned Dulcie before taking her place.

Harrow questions why Dulcie is helping, and Dulcie answers that death has freed her from the fear of dying and left her eager for revenge. Abigail asks Harrow for any clue to the Sleeper’s identity or anchor, and Harrow can only connect the Sleeper’s sword-signifier to Gideon’s Ninth House infantry sword, though the other signs do not fit. Abigail positions the ghosts around the diagram, thanks Harrow for letting her act as psychopomp, and begins the rite with a libation and a formal command for the Sleeper to leave.

Abigail discovers that the Sleeper’s ties lead outside the River bubble to a physical object, meaning the exorcism can pull the Sleeper from Harrow but cannot necessarily banish the other anchor. When Abigail asks who the Sleeper is, the coffin bursts open and is revealed to be empty. The Sleeper speaks from a nearby passage, fires at Harrow, and Harrow barely raises a bone shield, realizing with alarm how weak her necromancy is in this place.

The Sleeper, revealed by voice to be a woman in the orange haz suit, warns the group not to engage and demands that Harrow be surrendered. Protesilaus attacks first, but the Sleeper discards one gun, produces others, outmaneuvers him, and shoots him down; Dulcie screams. The Sleeper offers a bargain: if Harrow gives herself up, the ghosts may leave, but if not, the Sleeper will kill them all.

As the Sleeper counts down, Dulcie is shot while trying to move, then Magnus ambushes the Sleeper from behind and Marta Dyas attacks with a recovered gun. Dyas’s shots punch holes in the suit but draw no blood, and the Sleeper defeats both attackers, shooting Magnus and crushing Dyas down. Protesilaus rises again and garrotes the Sleeper, but she declares that this fight follows her rules, cripples him, shrugs off Dyas’s rapier, and pins Dyas underfoot.

Harrow tries to use bone magic, but the Sleeper shoots the forming construct out of the air and renders it inert, stating that there will be no magic or tricks here. The Sleeper tells Harrow that surrender means Harrow will die, the Sleeper will get Harrow’s body, and the Sleeper will “finish it,” though she refuses to explain what that means. With the fighters down and the count reaching one, Ortus clears his throat beside Harrow, preparing to intervene.