Evar flees through the stacks from an unusually powerful Escape that drinks from books and coalesces into a tall, black, scythe-limbed creature. It speaks Evar’s name and corners him as he readies a makeshift knife, knowing he cannot reach the others in time.

As the Escape moves to strike, an iron shard hits its back. Clovis steps from cover and, using ruthless precision, wounds the creature while Evar stabs from behind. The Escape dissipates. Clovis admits Kerrol sent Evar after her as bait to draw the sneaky Escape into the open, angering Evar before the moment passes.

The pair turn to a colossal, long-hidden tower of books that Evar crashed into. As Clovis examines it, the stack destabilizes. Despite their efforts to brace it, the tower collapses, burying them until they claw free, shaken but alive.

Old intimacy flickers and fades as Clovis rebuffs Evar. Amid the wreckage, Evar is irresistibly drawn to a thin, plain brown book that shocks him with a sense of recognition. Clovis snatches it, then tosses it back, noting it will be unreadable without the Mechanism.

While following Clovis, Evar opens the book. Though the script is an unfamiliar fourteen-letter alphabet, he understands the line perfectly: a warning not to continue and an instruction to find the writer in the Exchange at the bottom. The message confirms a new path and urgent purpose.