Peter hauls Alice from the Lethe as the bone-things dissolve in the river. He tests her memory, fearing amnesia, but Alice feels intact. Battling a storm, they push out of Desire to the border with Greed and make camp by the Lethe. Alice’s flask is ruined; they agree to share Peter’s water.

Pressed to verify her memory, Alice confides that she is immune to the Lethe because of a permanent pentagram etched into her upper arm by Professor Grimes. She explains the breakthrough: Grimes proved a living, skin-etched pentagram could hold a lasting charge, defying magick’s ephemerality. The reveal forces her to recount the secret she has kept.

Alice recalls Venice: after animal trials, she consented to the tattoo without anesthetic, enduring searing pain and a flood of living-dead energy. The result was perfect recall and relentless cognitive overload; forgetting became impossible. Grimes demanded secrecy, then quickly moved on, leaving Alice with lifelong consequences and the knowledge that she was his successful experiment.

Back at the fire, Peter processes the revelation. They debate ethics and swap stories of Grimes’s abuses and brilliance: Peter admits stealing multiple cadaveric colons for research; both recount belittlement and manipulations, yet also their awe for Grimes’s devotion to truth. They laugh darkly, acknowledge they are in Hell because of him, and share a soldierly loyalty to their “tyrant.” They set a watch and try to rest.

While Peter sleeps, Alice studies his notes. She recognizes a worked-out spell for organic exchange—impossible to self-execute—bearing Grimes’s name on one side and, shockingly, Alice’s name underlined on the other. Knowing magick cannot be used to kill oneself, she concludes the intent: Peter plans to trade her soul to bring back Grimes, trapping her in Hell. Fear replaces the night’s fragile camaraderie.