Envoy makes her way through the lower levels of Babel, known alternately as the Undercity or as the Streets Below. She happens upon a bazaar of sorts, where she trades her mages' robes for attire meant to blend in better with the locals. Some young bats steal some candles from her, and she avoids another bat that seems to be sizing her up as an easy mark. She ventures into an old shrine, where she finds a priest, his wife and child, and claims to be a pilgrim who has lost her way. When she mentions that she wishes to find the temple of Barada, the priest offers her shelter if she will take a message to the Yodhbarada. While the priest writes the missive, Envoy sleeps … and goes through a number of dream experiences of deaths attributed to the "boomer". When Envoy awakes, she feels that she recognizes the wife of the priest, and calls her by name, and claims that she was a maid for the household of Karada before she came here. This prompts panic on the part of the priest and the former maid (if, indeed, that's who she was), and the priest pulls a knife on Envoy. Envoy does not react, and is stabbed through the chest.