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Walking past Shade into the Narak safehouse is, for Shallan, a memory turning on itself — her first meeting with Mraize in Sebarial's under-basement, played again here as another descent. The stairs are smooth and lichen-darkened with crem in the corners; the air below is damp, with incense underneath. At the bottom landing she finds the Alethi actor — the acolyte who was sent to spy on Dalinar — examining a row of glass cases of unlabelled trophies. Shallan keeps the mask down and leans against the wall as though bored. In the reflection of the case next to her, a shadowy figure with white eye-holes appears — Sja-anat, present in this realm only as a mirror-shape — studies her in turn, smiles knowingly, and vanishes. Does the Unmade know who she is? There is no time.

Shade waves the two newcomers into the next room and Shallan risks following, closing the door behind her. The chamber beyond is large, low-ceilinged, lined with hay-bale targets along the southern wall. Seven Ghostbloods cluster around a podium; Mraize is among them, fiddling with a strange large crossbow. His silhouette intimidates her on reflex. Iyatil is crouched against the north wall — short, masked, with a full view of the room — and others would mistake her for a guard, but Shallan knows the truth: Iyatil is the master and Mraize is her second. The third masked offworlder paces the far wall and fetches drinks for the seated members like a servant. Shallan picks a spot near the wall and crouches in Iyatil's style, refusing to move.

Mraize practises with the device. *Stolen Purse*, *Icy Tongue*, *Chain* — every member of the cell has one of his nicknames. Aika pushes him on what the urgency justifies; the Azish vizier (Zora) regrets how long it has been since the cell met. Icy Tongue identifies the weapon: a Thaylen hand ballista, the heavier crossbow developed to deliver fire to ship sails — *common guardsman weapon*, Chain corrects himself wrong; Mraize confirms it is a *modern weapon, relying on mechanical strength rather than strength of arm*, and reloads. *On some worlds the crossbow became the default of an era*, he muses, *because untrained farmers can pierce steel without the lifetime of practice an archer or a regal lighteyed in plate needs*. Chain reminds him that Aladar tried crossbowman ranks and they got nothing but a Shardbearer marching through them. *Wisdom of the past*, Mraize answers — *excellent at teaching us to deal with the world as it has existed. And only as it has existed.*

Iyatil gestures him on. Mraize opens the podium and out floats a seon — much like the one Shallan keeps in her communication box. It shapes into the head of an older mustached man. Shallan's recognition arrives a beat after his voice does. *Felt*. Adolin's soldier. *We've found Restares*, Felt tells the room, *and Mishram's prison is hidden in the Spiritual Realm*. Felt is a Ghostblood — the backup Mraize planted on Dalinar in case Shallan failed — and the seon is the one Shallan herself liberated, *Ala*, who has apparently been a Ghostblood all along. The seon, Felt adds drily, has asked to be paid in a pony, possibly as a joke. Shallan suppresses shockspren.

Mraize then sets out the play: he and Iyatil have intel from a special contact — when Dalinar enters the Spiritual Realm they will follow him in. They had thought they would need Shallan to nudge him there, but Cultivation handled that herself. They may not return; if they do, hundreds of years may have passed in the Physical Realm. Zora gets the Narak cell and the seon Ala in their absence, reporting directly to Master Thaidakar. Icy Tongue presses — *we're Ghostbloods, no secrets, those are the rules* — and Mraize cuts her off: *Master Thaidakar's own actions prove he does not believe in this rule.* Shallan sends a triple flash on the spanreed inside her sleeve — *be ready, not yet*. Mraize selects his next bolt — one mounted with a gemstone — and fires; Shallan reads the message. A Thaylen ballista carries a payload. With a gemstone full of the anti-Stormlight Navani built in her absence, it becomes a weapon that can kill a Radiant and a spren together. He has been showing them the future of how to kill them. Then Iyatil crosses the room, stoops beside her, and whispers — in a language Shallan does not recognize.

In the Sibling's garden room, Dalinar and Navani sit hand in hand and talk through what *Ascending* could mean for him and for them. She is afraid not of losing his presence but of losing him — his love, his humanity. He can answer neither *will I still be yours* nor *does it have to be you*; only that something has been guiding him for years toward something past being a stronger Bondsmith, and the contest alone is not enough. He believes he can yield the Shard later if it changes him too much. Wit returns and concedes that this is *technically* possible — it has been done once, by a mortal who chose to give up the power — but very nearly never. Navani insists on going with him: not as wife but as scholar, since whatever past they live in there will need interpreting. He hates it and yields. Wit proposes a first peek — mind only, body left behind — to see whether the technique even works, and then a longer journey into times he himself wasn't present for. Dalinar agrees, asks why not here, and is told: because if he mis-aims through the three realms with the force he is using, he might cast himself beyond the tower entirely. They will descend the elevators and try the experiment lower down, after telling Aladar and Sebarial what they are about to do, just in case.