Envoy stays with the Balfin and learns their language. She learns that they live a semi-nomadic existence, moving from island to island only when the time is right, and sending offerings to the "Svartifin" who live below. Envoy decides that she wishes to see these Svartifin, and arranges to go with these offerings to them, through a crystal Sifran portal.

She is transported somewhere else, and meets a creature known as a Svartifin, which bears some faint resemblance to the Aelfin and Balfin races. The Svartifin shows Envoy around a vast Sifran complex, explaining that there are engines here that run on "the power of creation and destruction" – the generation and destruction of microcosms. Envoy is fascinated by this, and wonders how this might be put to use to aid her quest.