As the Resurrection Beast approaches, the Mithraeum becomes tense with preparation. Augustine and Ortus drill under increasingly punishing conditions, while the Lyctors belatedly train Harrow and Ianthe in River defenses. In the River, the group builds wards from dead wood, stones, and harsh bank plants because flesh, blood, and bone cannot be relied on there; the absence of ghosts suggests even the dead have fled the coming danger.

During the final week before the confrontation, Harrow still half-believes survival is possible. John invites Harrow to his rooms and again offers to let Harrow be sealed away with him before the battle. When Harrow asks why the Emperor must be locked in an airless room at all, John explains that if he enters the River or dies, Dominicus could fail, destroying the Nine Houses; he cannot fight without risking the system he sustains.

Harrow then asks about A.L. John reveals that A.L. was his first Resurrection, his defender, companion, and bodyguard after the world ended through rising seas and nuclear catastrophe. A.L. lived to see Canaan House and the creation of Lyctorhood, but died after the first terrible assault that followed their sin. John says all later necromancers are, in a sense, A.L.'s children, and tells Harrow that he sometimes wishes she had been his daughter.

John's paternal remark devastates Harrow. Harrow breaks her glass, kneels in the shards, and confesses that as a child she broke into the Locked Tomb, saw what lay inside, and believes that her parents killed themselves because of her heresy. Harrow asks whether she sinned and caused the deaths of her fathers.

John gently insists Harrow did not do what Harrow believes. John says the true Tomb's blood ward was made by him alone, cannot be bypassed, broken, faded, or opened by anyone except him, and that Harrow must have entered some false chamber created around the Tomb. This answer undermines Harrow's certainty and throws Harrow back into doubt about her own memories and sanity.

As John comforts Harrow and touches Harrow's temple, John abruptly notices that someone has tampered with Harrow's temporal lobe. Harrow's body reacts before Harrow can think, fleeing the room despite John's calls. As Harrow leaves, John curses himself, but Harrow no longer trusts even what Harrow hears.