Inside Thistleburr Booksellers, Gallina continues rummaging through the dead gray man's satchel, pulling out a corked bottle that appears to contain sand alongside the bones. Fern sniffs the contents and identifies it as bonedust, not sand, then a second matching bottle is recovered. Viv dismisses the haul as worthless, but Fern grows thoughtful and disappears among her shelves to consult a heavy leather-bound volume.

After leafing through the book, Fern triumphantly identifies the find as osseoscription: an enchantment of animation permanently inscribed in tiny script along the bones, activated by bonedust as a catalyst. Examining a bone Potroast had been gnawing, they confirm the engravings. According to the text, the result is not a wight but a "bone homunculus," described as an assistant. Viv speculates this could explain how the gray man may have escaped his cell.

Despite her instinct toward caution, Viv agrees to test it. They clear the shop floor, roll up the carpet, lock Potroast in the back room, and place the open satchel in the center. Viv, the most experienced fighter, sprinkles a small amount of bonedust into the bag while she and Gallina ready their weapons.

After a tense pause, the satchel stirs and an improbable cascade of bones spills out, assembling themselves into a small skeletal figure with two nubby horns, glowing blue tracery, and cobalt flame in its eye sockets. Unlike the wights Viv has fought, it is small, delicate, and smells of lightning rather than winter blood. The homunculus bows to Viv, addresses her as "M'lady" in a hollow, sorrowful voice, and declares, "I exist to serve." Fern is delighted by the confirmation of her theory.