Din arrives at the river docks before dawn and joins Malo’s expedition boat, which is pulled by seakips and crewed by Pithian wardens with enhanced senses. Malo introduces Din to the mostly taciturn crew, including the medikker princeps Tangis. The final warden to arrive is Sabudara, the Yarrow woman Din slept with on his first night in the city, and Malo immediately notices the connection and warns Din that there will be no romantic distraction during the raid.

After sunrise, the boat leaves the settled canals and turns into a jungle tributary, where the wardens fall silent and begin watching for danger. Sabudara tosses Din a dirty cloak so his size and blue skin will be less visible. Malo explains that smugglers prefer ambush and escape over open battle, then gives Din an ashpen sketch of the suspected fake Treasury man from the bank; she warns that the man may have altered his flesh, so only the deeper structure of his face may still be reliable.

The journey becomes a long, humid passage through wilderness. Din strips down to his tunic, copies the wardens by rubbing insect-repelling paste on his skin, and adjusts to the crew’s rough habits. At night they hide the boat beside a cliff, bring in the seakips, and eat cold rations without any visible light so they will not expose themselves to enemies in the swamp.

During the dark camp, Tangis jokes about the hazards of relieving himself in the jungle, and the crew loosens enough to whisper and play games. The wardens keep studying Din, and Malo finally explains that they rarely spend time around Sublimes except to receive orders. When Din lists the distant imperial regions where he has served, the crew is impressed, especially by his mention of Talagray and its sea walls, which makes Din briefly into a witness to the wider Empire they mostly know only through rumor.

The wardens then question Din about the emperor and the ancient Khanum. Din explains that the emperor is not a god but the last living Khanum, sustained for centuries by lost arts, and that the first imperials changed themselves into something beyond ordinary humanity before dying out. When Din compares the Khanum to mules in their inability to breed, a translation problem turns the discussion into a crude debate over whether Din is an incomplete man; Din clarifies that he cannot father children. The women become more intrigued, the men more uneasy, and Malo angrily shuts the conversation down, repeating her order that nobody is to try sleeping with Din during the mission.