Peter Murdoch grows up a prodigy confined by Crohn’s disease, which he and his parents call the Beast. Early praise and chronic illness breed an aversion to pity, hardened when schoolchildren attend his birthday out of sympathy. He chooses isolation, embraces difficult goals, and resolves never to be seen as weak.

At Oxford, Peter cultivates the aura of an erratic genius while hiding hospitalizations and flares. He learns that perception grants latitude, and he leans into a mystique that excuses absences. His body intermittently cooperates, further enabling the myth he builds around himself.

At Cambridge, Peter thrives under Jacob Grimes and becomes enthralled by Alice Law’s unconventional intellect. A long remission ends in a severe flare. Grimes responds with skepticism and platitudes, and Peter’s condition spirals into an emergency colectomy. Returning depleted, Peter finds Grimes publishing Peter’s categorization breakthrough without credit.

Humiliated and angry, Peter confronts Grimes but cannot bring himself to cite his illness. Out of spite and exhaustion, he skim-approves the manuscript and ritual documentation, failing to retrace pentagram iterations. The next morning, a catastrophic lab incident leaves Grimes dead; the department reels as responders speak of remains beyond recovery.

Consumed by guilt and briefly contemplating suicide, Peter resolves instead to atone by retrieving Grimes’s soul via the costly exchange known to the Alchemists. Researching a gateway, he notices Alice departing the lab with chalk-smeared notes marked by Ramanujan’s Summation and Setiya’s Modifications. Concluding Alice is bound for Hell, Peter decides he must go with her.