Alice dreams of reconstructing Professor Grimes from pieces, then wakes to a Shade with a shifting, nondescript face who names himself John Gradus. Recognizing she is living and a magician, Gradus proposes a trade: he will guide her to Dis in exchange for stories about the world above.

As they walk, Gradus hungrily interrogates Alice about mundane earthly sensations—food, music, fashion—leeching the vividness of life while avoiding specifics about himself. Alice tries to place him and briefly wonders if he could be Grimes, but Gradus remains elusive, his form deliberately nonspecific.

On Hell’s customs, Gradus explains that the drafts Alice found are dissertations: the damned write endlessly about their own sins, and only truth can set them free—though he has never seen anyone succeed, and he himself does not try. Pressed for her story, Alice recounts her journey, including Peter’s sacrifice, which delights Gradus until he learns the Kripkes are hunting her. He grows fearful, urging haste, while Alice’s numbness to “the script” unsettles and angers him.

They climb to a ridge and behold Dis, a breathtaking, defiant marble city—human perfection in exile—whose beauty rebukes the sacred places it mirrors. Gradus says its inhabitants are traitors and oath-breakers: those who betrayed sacred bonds between spouses, kin, or teachers and students. The realization chills Alice.

When Alice pointedly asks what Gradus did and why he isn’t writing, he turns stone-cold and issues a final rule: never ask a sinner’s crime in Dis. Confessions may be taken only if freely offered; to survive, Alice must not ask.