The masked boatman ferries Alice and Peter out of danger on the patchwork vessel Neurath and unmasks as Elspeth Bayes, a former Cambridge magician long thought dead. Elspeth recognizes their magicians’ chalk and explains the bone constructs—her “rovers”—fear the Lethe. She names Nicomachus and Magnolia Kripke as their creators, positing either bound Shades or mind-split satellites, and reveals the two-legged construct is their son, Theophrastus, whom they brought by poisoning him before their fatal stunt.

Elspeth sets them skimming along calmer waters and raises the stakes: in Hell, death annihilates the soul—there is no reincarnation. She goes ashore to fetch food, leaving Alice and Peter alone. Their simmering conflict erupts: Peter condemns Alice for taking the green choice at the Weaver’s test, effectively condemning him; Alice, unable to articulate her lapses, cites a spell in his notebook and fears he would exchange her. Peter, hurt and furious, rejects the comparison to Grimes.

Elspeth returns cheerfully with rats, cooks a meal, and demonstrates how magick can work in Hell by mixing chalk with vital force. Using Curry’s Paradox, she heals Peter’s wounds, showing that blood insulates chalk from the silt that otherwise nullifies spells.

Prompted by Alice, Peter uses Alice’s blood to perform Banach–Tarski on his Perpetual Flask, successfully duplicating it so Alice can survive independently. Elspeth then explains the Kripkes’ brutal campaign: they hunt any sojourning magicians, steal research, torture for information, and drain blood to fuel their work, which is why no recent accounts exist.

Finally, Elspeth frames the shared objective as the Great Quest: finding a True Contradiction—the Dialetheia—to explode constraints and escape Hell. She claims leads but refuses to divulge them, while offering the boat as a haven, underscoring both solidarity and competition among magicians.