Alptraum flies toward the Coalition Tower, only to witness an attack on the Yodhgorphat entourage by an Executor and his mercenaries. With perhaps the best flying and fighting he's done in such a short time in his life, Alptraum makes a daring move, and manages to save Phlagaea from sharing the fate of her fellow Yodhgorphat. Alptraum then wings off toward the approaching air barge of the Yodhsunala, and the patrol craft of the Yodhrephath, warning them against an ambush set up for them. When he breaks news of the attacks to Sunala, she seems resigned that the followers of the Seven Sisters will have to leave Babel.

Alptraum flies off, trying to find others he might be able to help, and is reunited with Phlagaea again. He sends her to Mount Sunala, in hopes that she can find refuge there. Meanwhile, he heads back to the hospice of Rinala. There, he encounters Mariamara, who has fled the Coalition Tower with Rikat. (Rikat was injured in the adventure, and is being tended at the hospice.) Mariamara, fearful that she may not have the chance again, finally tells Alptraum what she was unwilling to tell him earlier: She has reason to believe that Vizier Thath is Alptraum's father – not some sort of miraculous birth. Mariamara's faith has been shattered, as she had thought that the apparent miracle of her being spared from death had been due to the intervention of Sunala herself; when she heard Alptraum claim that he may have been responsible – and that he may have intervened in another such attempted ritual suicide – her worldview was shattered, as she had to entertain possibilities she did not want to consider. That possibility would be that she was responsible for the blasphemy that resulted in Alptraum's birth, by not only using her magic to animate a Srinala to be "possessed" by the spirit of Thath's dead wife, but by leaving them alone unattended.

Alptraum tries to reassure Mariamara, and promises that he will stand by her and Rikat.