After Radiant drives a sword through Abidi, the Fused escapes into the bead wall before she can kill him permanently. The cavern collapses into the sea of beads, and Shallan uses Soulcasting-like control over a bead representing a room to create a shelter and dig Adolin out. Shaken by how real her manifested illusion of Radiant felt, Shallan briefly questions whether Adolin himself could be one of her creations, but Adolin steadies her and urges her to help the Windrunners still fighting above.

As Shallan tries to raise them, the bead wall forms the face of Ba-Ado-Mishram and a furious voice in Shallan's mind threatens to destroy humanity. The encounter nearly overwhelms Shallan until Adolin smashes the face apart with his greatsword, breaking the vision. Shallan then improvises a spherical room to carry them upward, rescues a fallen Windrunner by stabilizing the beads into a platform, and faces Abidi again when he attacks their position.

Shallan is too exhausted to fight well, but Abidi underestimates Adolin. Adolin intercepts the Fused, exploits a gap in his carapace, and wounds him badly enough that Abidi's Voidlight fails and he crashes into the beads. Radiant finally remanifests and drives off the other Fused with a massive Shardbow, giving Shallan time to box the group inside another room and sink them beneath the bead ocean. Inside the moving shelter, Shallan uses Pattern as a guide so Drehy and his squires can retrieve Pattern, Testament, Maya, and Drehy's spren, then she carries everyone away to safety while Adolin helps her recover Stormlight.

Once they have escaped immediate pursuit, Drehy explains that his navigation fabrial points toward the ominously named Grand Knell and should still let them keep their course toward Azimir. When they surface to scout, they find Gallant safe on a nearby island among a herd of glowing musicspren that can run through the air. One lingers to touch Adolin in a strangely familiar encounter before the magic carrying Gallant fades and Drehy renews his Lashing.

Drehy then reveals the true reason the Fused were patrolling nearby. Shallan disguises the group with musicspren illusions, and together they investigate distant lights that turn out to be hundreds of ships in Shadesmar carrying singer soldiers. Realizing the enemy has assembled a secret invasion force of thousands headed straight for Azimir, Shallan, Adolin, and Drehy conclude they must reach the city as quickly as possible to warn it.