Bryce brings Ithan and Tharion to the mystics' building in the Old Square, repeatedly warning them that the place is dangerous and vile. Inside, the old proprietor, who calls himself the Astronomer, admits them because of Tharion's badge. Bryce immediately notices that the Astronomer wears rings containing enslaved fire sprites, and her disgust deepens when she sees the three mystics themselves: one male, one female, and one both, all submerged in tanks and reduced to living tools.

As the Astronomer powers up the chamber, Bryce studies the room's great moving model of the cosmos and presses him about the mystics' condition. He defends the practice by claiming they chose this life and that their families were paid, but Bryce knows poverty and exploitation are the real cause. While Bryce argues with him, Ithan takes charge and pays to ask a single urgent question: whether Connor Holstrom's soul is still in the Bone Quarter or has passed through the Dead Gate.

The Astronomer says the question requires a riskier, nearly illegal method and demands more money. He uses bloodsalt to sharpen the mystics' search, turning the tank water red and further horrifying Bryce. When the floor retracts to reveal a lower level and a black pit surrounded by seven layers of darkness like the levels of Hel, Bryce wants to leave, but Ithan's desperation over Connor makes her stay.

The Astronomer sends the mystics searching and boasts that they were the original source of endless information, now supplemented by machinery that translates their brain activity into words. The chamber grows colder as the male mystic reaches Hel's orbit, and the transcription first suggests Connor might be there. Then the contact on the other end says that no wolves have roamed those lands for eons and that no wolf named Connor is present, giving Bryce and Ithan sudden relief that Connor is not trapped in Hel.

The conversation becomes more dangerous when the being identifies himself as Thanatos, Prince of the Ravine. Thanatos asks who sent the mystic, and the mystic answers that a wolf, a mer, and a half-Fae, half-human female are listening. Realizing a prince of Hel is now aware of them, Ithan urges that they stop, but the exchange continues until Thanatos says, "Let me see them. Let them see me." The chapter ends with the male mystic's eyes snapping open in his tank.