As the storm abates, Lysander crawls out of a hydra burrow where he survived by hiding alongside the beast. He surveys the scoured playa, finds a downed bomber marked with Gorgon insignia, and discovers evidence of a departing shuttle using Sun Industries gear. Seeing a shuttle racing toward Heliopolis, he concludes Kalindora has been captured, while Cicero is also missing. Exhausted and despairing, he reflects on Octavia’s shaping of him and resists retreating into the Mind’s Eye to die.

A ghostCloaked voice—Apollonius—warns of approaching killers and demands the secret of the Mind’s Eye in exchange for aid. Seven Peerless Scarred led by Seneca land to execute Lysander. He goads them into unfurling their helmets, then detonates a firebrand payload overhead, blinding everyone, himself included.

Entering the Mind’s Eye, Lysander reconstructs the field from memory and senses. He kills three immediately, shoots down a fourth in gravBoots, and an attempted escape is cut short by his unseen watcher. He cripples a sixth to bleed out, then duels Seneca. Using razor transitions and the Willow Way’s Weeping Noose, he severs Seneca’s feet and finally beheads him.

Spent and wounded, Lysander confronts the ghostCloaked Apollonius, who confirms the Mind’s Eye is real and demands it, hinting at enmities with Ajax, Atalantia, and Atlas. Lysander refuses to teach or ally, declaring Atalantia and Atlas not his enemies. He cuts out his mission tracker and hands it over, offering only a “show.”

Apollonius pockets choice gear, including gravBoots, and taunts Lysander about lacking theater. Refusing debt or patronage, Lysander loots what he can and sets off north, blind from the firebrand but newly resolute. He accepts that Ajax abandoned him and claims ownership of his life, determined not to waste it.