Exhausted and unnerved after encountering bone-things, Alice and Peter push along the riverbank until one in the morning before making camp. Alice treats Peter’s arm with merbromin and rewraps it, while both remain alert to the sense of being watched.

Seeking speed, Peter proposes a shortcut to skip ahead in the Courts by invoking Gabriel’s Horn, a calculus-based construct, and draws a test pentagram. The chalked lines vanish into the silt. Alice attempts a simple Sorites Paradox circle; it too is swallowed. They conclude Hell’s ground absorbs chalk, rendering pentagram magick inoperative.

The realization that they have no magical defenses triggers Alice’s panic—visions of predation and death crowd her thoughts. Banter about chalk brands breaks into sobbing, and Peter awkwardly comforts her, insisting they will figure it out despite the setback.

Peter explains he chose Hell over Cambridge’s closed loop because it offered solvable, open-ended problems. He urges Alice to trust their training and curiosity. Alice steadies herself by recalling Intuitionist thought—that belief powers magick—and rebuilds her resolve with internal affirmations.

Archimedes darts back into camp, frantic and bloodied along his side, implying contact with the bone-things. The cat’s terror, coupled with Alice’s recollection of Eliot’s lines about fear and dust, confirms a stalking, unseen menace as they press on without reliable magick.