Alice follows a golden braid of souls across an island to a throne where King Yama oversees a wheel of reincarnation. Addressing him in Chinese, she presents the Dialetheia to bargain. When Alice states she came to find Professor Grimes, Yama conjures a binding circle and summons the Shade of Grimes.

Grimes taunts Yama and then turns to Alice, praising her and revealing he planted her dreams and images, urging her to remain in Hell to study with the Dialetheia. He extols death as freedom from the body, but Alice, recalling past violations, affirms she wants to live and go home.

After Grimes’s callousness about Peter’s death, Alice’s disillusionment hardens. She shows notes of the Erichtho work she would have used and begins a new working in the sand with Elspeth’s chalk, guided by Peter’s designs. The sand holds. Yama keeps Grimes inside the circle, noting, “Hell has no rules.”

Grimes tries to disrupt her, belittling and attempting to strike, but his Shade is insubstantial. Alice maintains focus, chants, and raises a wind within the circle. Grimes is lifted and slowly unspooled, his essence unraveling to nothing.

The air splits into the outline of a door. It swings open, and Peter Murdoch stumbles out.