After making plenty of safety preparations, Envoy has herself locked in a padded room where she drinks down the vial that Inala gave her, promising it would provide her with something she needed to help resist Barada's control.

She enters in a dream of sorts, where she finds herself pregnant and married to Morpheus, thanks to the efforts of Barabbas to give her a reproductive system before he died. She finds it all very disturbing and even scary, as she learns from Morpheus what's going to be involved.

Sure enough, labor sets in and Envoy is taken to a birthing room, where Mage Latania takes over. The labor is hard on Envoy, and when it's over there's a problem with the baby not breathing! Latania tries various spells, but declares the child dead, saying it just couldn't survive when disconnected from Envoy.

Envoy demands to hold the child anyway, saying it will wake up eventually just like she always did. The nurse – Inala in disguise – reminds Envoy of how she felt when Envoy took away her daughters (by inciting the Yodhblakat to attack the Temple of Inala in Babel). Envoy is angry and sad, but the baby does wake up, and Envoy suddenly feels reconnected to the Child aspect of her mind, that she had lost.