Evar follows the Soldier to the reading room after an Escape’s destruction, where new ones usually appear. Among the jumbled desks, Evar recalls escalating sibling tensions and the Assistant’s austere, near-maternal role. She had always demanded more of Evar, believing his siblings returned from the Mechanism with grafted knowledge while he did not.

At the Mechanism, Evar shows the Assistant a new, titleless book; her eyes blaze blue and she says the finisher of the book differed from its starter. The Mechanism then shudders, its door today a white plasteek panel. A ghost-world bleeds into the hall, and multiple knife-handed Escapes form—more than ever before. The Soldier cuts down two and chases a third.

The Assistant struggles to open the door; it bursts, flinging her and Evar back as Starval sprints out clutching a book, a storm of unmaking collapsing the world behind him. She slams the door just in time—but a vast hornet-like Escape finishes coalescing in the room and seizes the Assistant. “Run,” she orders.

Starval drags Evar into their desk-maze, using diversions and throwing stars to harry the creature, but it crashes after them. Refusing to watch the Assistant shattered, Evar sprints for the Mechanism, betting on its suction. The Escape braces, shedding plates into the vortex, then disintegrates; a dark core flees toward the stacks.

The Assistant rises, visibly chipped at the shoulder, a first crack in her seeming invulnerability. She tells the brothers to come with her. As they follow, Evar and Starval both feel the Mechanism’s lingering pull on them—realizing it not only reclaims Escapes but also, in some sense, still wants the siblings who once escaped it.