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Jeffrey Jeffrey walks Nomad through the Dawnchaser's control cab one last time. Throttle here; lateral rotation here; one primary thruster set aside for translation forward, the rest dedicated to lift; a freshly wired-in panel for jettisoning the three water-carrier ships once they are empty; a small radar to measure proximity to the mountain. The Dawnchaser has been parked directly on top of Beacon's hub, above the Reliquary — which is now packed with the evacuated population pressed up around the Chorus' cage. Through the windshield the city looks like nothing so much as a flying barge built out of warehouses, twelve ships in a flat circle with a one-storey bump at the centre and the Dawnchaser perched on top. Jeffrey Jeffrey gestures at the controls on the left and explains them quickly as the Dawnchaser's old prospector rig — not relevant now. Elegy, in the chapter that ended last, had been an explorer who pushed limits; her ship had been built to sniff out Investiture in the great maelstrom. Nomad sends Jeffrey Jeffrey to a sealed cabin. The man offers to stay, points out that they sealed the Dawnchaser as well as they could even though its door has to open easily; there should be enough air to last. Nomad will not have it. Jeffrey Jeffrey blesses the flight in Adonalsium's name — and may Nomad always outrun the sun, in a very present and immediate way — and is the last person on Beacon to see the sky from inside the city before the steel goes over the rest of the windows.

Nomad takes the controls. Beacon goes up. There is not much to see of the mountain in the shadow they are climbing through; he flies by the radar and trusts altitude over geography. The throttle holds at almost full conventional power. Auxiliary remarks that this feels more boring than it should, which is what Nomad wants — boring is the goal. Aux pokes at him: how long has it been since he was in command of this many people? Nomad refuses the framing. He is flying a ship. Aux argues a ship-captain is a command position. Nomad shrugs it off. Aux ventures, gently, that the events Nomad has been quietly avoiding leadership positions over for years now were not his fault. Nomad does not contest it. He just keeps flying east, up the slope, away from the sun, and waits for the next thing Aux is going to raise.

The next thing comes from behind him. Elegy, chained to the wall of the main chamber, speaks up. Someone is in his head too, isn't there? Others think he is praying, but he isn't; he is talking to a voice. She used to hear one of her own. Yes, Nomad says — it is similar, more or less. The voice is his friend, he tells her; the tool he summons sometimes, that is his friend's body. Auxiliary, riding inside his head, calls himself Nomad's valet — the palanquin carrier hauling him around. Auxiliary cuts in to add that Nomad is a very ineffective one. Elegy wants to know why Nomad does not fight. Her old voice held her back and let her loose; now there is nothing holding her, and she wants to fight everyone. So why does Nomad, who has the same feeling, not fight? He tells her he picks his fights. Outside, the air thins past the seal-tolerance gauge; he calls the order for the cabins to close their intakes. He has about two hours of internal air from this point.

Elegy does not understand him. So he holds the conversation the way his master taught him — by inversion. He does not want to fight her people because there is no challenge to it and there is nothing to take from them. She tells him plainly that the fight itself is what she wants. If he freed her she would fight everyone on the Dawnchaser. And then what? he asks. And then nothing — she would die up here in the cold, alone. What would she have accomplished? She has to find something else to live for, he tells her; once she has a purpose, she will know when to fight, and why. She cannot recover who she was before; that person is gone like a burned book. But she cannot remain only what she is now or it kills her fast. The fire inside her is not going to extinguish; she has to find something it is for.

Then she sets the trap. So what is your purpose? He has walked right into it. He used to live for his friends, he tells her softly. Then he lived to protect the cosmere, for the brief time he was carrying one of its most dangerous secrets. Now he lives to run. She frowns. That is satisfying why? It isn't, he admits. He is still trying to learn the same lesson he just gave her. She closes her eyes, says she sees now, and thanks him. The woman is — he thinks — exactly the sort who must have been insufferable before. Some of that attitude, at least, has survived. Aux confesses, dryly, how embarrassed he is at how much better she just did his job than he has lately. Nomad ribs him for it; Aux retorts that he appointed himself to fill the conscience-shaped vacancy after Nomad threw his own out years ago, and that the rookie performance is on display.

Elevation check. They have barely been moving. Nomad takes a breath and engages the steam engines, and Beacon jolts upward as if a giant hammer has struck her. He releases the breath. For a while they fly in silence. Past the clouds, the slope comes into ringlit view. Are we even moving, Aux asks. Yes, but slowly. They should be accelerating as the burning water sheds weight; instead they are slowing. Nomad pushes the throttles to full and the gain tapers off. He has miscalculated, and he does not know where. Seals, maybe, that fail at low pressure; engines, maybe, overheating; the kind of quirk you would have caught in a stress test he did not have time to run. Behind them, the horizon begins to stain with the colour of false dawn.

Then he remembers his failsafe. He hits the button to jettison the first empty water-carrier vessel. It tumbles away into the dark and the city lurches into the higher rate of climb he had projected for this point. He checks the gauges. The second outer carrier is already empty too. He hits its release. Nothing happens. He hits it again. He looks out the windshield: it is still latched in place. The unlock has jammed. He needs that ship off Beacon now, and there is only one way to do it. He tells Aux: they will have to go out and do it by hand.