Caeror leads Vis away from the crypt-dwellers with the revived corpse, Djedef, and explains what he has done. Djedef is now an iunctus: still dead, but temporarily sustained by Caeror’s Will so long as Caeror keeps supplying it. Caeror clarifies that this does not heal the fatal wound; it only lets Djedef’s body ignore it, which means Djedef remains in pain and would die again if Caeror withdrew his Will.

As they walk through Qabr’s neglected tombs, Caeror quietly questions Djedef in Vetusian about his life and how he died. When they reach a tiny exit tunnel, Vis hesitates because of old memories, but follows Caeror and Djedef through the dark crawlspace anyway. The three emerge into a brutal white desert, where Caeror has Vis drag a robe behind them to erase their tracks and keep watch for danger from above.

Outside, Vis sees the distant black pyramid city of Duat and realizes it resembles the impossible cityscape he glimpsed during the Anguis attack at the naumachia. Caeror is struck by the connection and asks to hear more later, but first continues answering Vis’s questions about Will in Obiteum. Caeror explains that, unlike on Res, Will here is used to restore and sustain rather than simply strengthen, and that revived iunctii can internally maintain the imbued Will through a process his mentor called Adoption.

Caeror then reveals that Vitaeria were created with Obiteum’s form of Will and that Vis and Caeror are being actively imbued even now. Their amulets are preserving their lungs against the desert air, and the excess power would even allow Vis to self-imbue despite Vis’s long discomfort with Will. Caeror adds that passing through the Gate on Solivagus effectively counts as undergoing the Aurora Columnae, which explains why Vis can now do what Academy training normally reserves for the initiated.

After they stop among the dunes, Caeror finally explains why he brought Djedef out of Qabr before finishing the interrogation. The Concurrence, whom Caeror calls Ka, sometimes leaves commands inside iunctii so that revived dead can escape, report back, or kill those around them. Because Djedef might still be carrying such a command, Caeror says the only safe way to test him is out in the open, draws an obsidian blade like the Instruction Blades from the ruins near the Academy, warns Vis to stay silent, and then drives the weapon through Djedef’s back.