As the disguised party camps among Bishop Apollonia's pilgrims, Alex reminds herself that everyone is afraid of something and decides to act brave by wedging herself between Vigga and Baptiste at the fire. The effort mostly leaves Alex cramped and alarmed, especially by Vigga's smell, appetite, and unpredictable movements, but Alex keeps up the pretense of courage while listening to the group's conversation.

When Vigga asks where the pilgrims are actually going, Brother Diaz explains that most are bound for Cyprus, to the Basilica of Saint Justine the Optimist. There, they will climb the campanile and, on a very clear day, may glimpse the Holy Land from afar because the elves still hold it. The exchange quickly turns into the company's usual crude mockery, with Vigga dismissing holy places, Baron Rikard insulting Vigga, and Brother Diaz struggling to keep the discussion respectable in front of nearby pilgrims.

The talk drifts further as Baptiste and Baron Rikard recall former nonhuman members of their company, a troll and a goblin named Iris, both of whom Vigga killed. The jokes underline how dangerous and unstable Alex's protectors are, even with one another. Then Alex quietly asks whether elves are truly as terrible as people claim, admitting that the only elf Alex has met seemed likable.

Jakob answers with a grim memory from the Second Crusade. After Christians retook Acre, Jakob found the city outwardly orderly, but inside the cathedral the elves had hung hundreds of human bodies in an efficient slaughterhouse and had eaten most of the population, sending others away for unknown purposes. Jakob says this is not random cruelty but a sacred duty for elves: to consume humanity. The revelation silences the group, leads Baptiste to note that Sunny must be one of the better elves, and leaves Alex sickened enough to lose her appetite.

At the end of the conversation, Vigga forces Brother Diaz back to his original point, and Brother Diaz admits that the pilgrims' journey does not reclaim anything at all: they simply travel, glimpse what they can, and return absolved of their sins. Baron Rikard wistfully remarks that vampires cannot be redeemed so easily. Alex ends the scene still thinking about fear, now with a sharper sense of what awaits in lands touched by the elves.