The chapter opens at Prague’s Old-New Synagogue in Josefov, describing its centuries of survival, the legend that its stones were brought from Jerusalem “on condition” (al tnay), and how modern luxury shops now crowd the once-somber ghetto.

The Golěm approaches the synagogue and recalls how, after first arriving in Prague, he heard a tour guide recount the golem legend and felt an immediate, personal pull to enter the temple. Sitting in the still, dim interior, he read a pamphlet and became absorbed in the story of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel (the Maharal of Prague), a scholar and mystic whose writings included Gur Aryeh al HaTorah.

Later, after buying the rabbi’s text, The Golěm read about layered reality, fused souls, and reincarnation, and recognized “the Truth” as he already understood it. The reading triggers his memory of “awakening” in a mental institution: seeing a helpless woman being beaten by a night nurse, killing the nurse to stop the abuse, and then secretly carrying the woman back to bed and tending her wounds. From that first violent intervention, he defined himself as the woman’s protector.

The Golěm explains that only in Prague, through Rabbi Loew’s words, did he fully understand why the legend felt familiar and why he had been drawn here: he believes he is The Golěm, an outcast guardian created to protect. He also admits the cost of his devotion—he has killed Sasha’s mentor and Sasha’s lover, whom he views as monsters that betrayed her trust.

Facing a new challenge, The Golěm decides Sasha must not learn what he has done “on her behalf,” so he locks Sasha away in darkness to keep her unaware. Carrying a Vipertek stun gun, a retractable blade, and a metal wand to control the Ether, he nears the synagogue but abruptly turns onto Široká Street toward the fortified lot next door—an infamous, feared place known worldwide as “the ghostliest place on earth.”