Mische wakes in Morthryn feeling as if someone has shaken her. Chandra and Elias are asleep, while Asar and Luce are missing. A strange wind seems to summon Mische through a newly appeared archway and down stairs into darkness, and Mische follows the instinct despite recognizing the danger.

At the bottom, Mische finds an open wrought-iron gate leading into a vast, unnatural realm of mist, color, stars, fire, and ice. Dead wraiths are pouring through it. Asar stands against them with shadow magic and his broken white-burning sword while Luce tries to hold them back, but both are being overwhelmed.

Mische enters the fight without a weapon and initially fails to summon her sun-fire. After a wraith touches Mische’s bare skin, Mische forces the flame back, but another dead figure appears as a boy Mische once knew, begging Mische to help him and come home. The vision paralyzes Mische until Asar and Luce drag the wraith back through the gate.

With the wraiths forced out, Asar tries to repair the damaged glyphs and close the gate, but Asar is badly wounded and exhausted. Luce pushes Mische into position opposite him, and Mische senses the gate’s failing magic, the hunger beyond it, and Asar’s unfinished spell. Mische instinctively joins that spell, drawing on Asar’s magic, the shadows, and a power inside herself that Mische has ignored for decades; the gate snaps shut, throwing Mische backward.

Asar collapses, bleeding heavily, and Luce urges Mische to help him. Mische half-carries Asar up the stairs with Luce’s guidance, but instead of returning to the others, Morthryn leads them to an inhabited bedchamber and then a washroom with a strange filled tub. Luce insists that Asar be put into the tub, then forces the exhausted Mische in as well.

Mische falls into the liquid beside Asar, too drained to resist. Asar’s body curls around Mische, Luce comforts Mische, and Mische loses consciousness while trying not to think of the dead boy’s pleading face.