When Alabaster and Syen arrive in Allia a week later, they report to the governor’s mansion, where an official named Asael criticizes them for the delay. Alabaster, outwardly polite, notes that he can sense that coral has all but blocked the comm’s harbor, endangering their economic survival: “So the least you could do is first offer us some hospitality, and then introduce us to the man [the governor] who made us travel several hundred miles to solve your little problem. That’s courtesy, yes?” (157).

Syenite admires Alabaster’s boldness but reminds him as they return to their hotel that Allia will probably complain to the Fulcrum. Alabaster waves off her concerns, and the two have dinner and go to bed.

Later that night, Syen wakes to the sight of Alabaster choking and paralyzed. When she tries to go fetch a doctor, Alabaster becomes upset and tries to once again tap into Syen’s own power. In desperation, she glances out the window, where she sees an obelisk; at that moment Alabaster pulls her focus upwards, and she finds herself “floating amid immense gelid things” with “something on them […] a contaminant” (165).

When Syen regains her senses, she sees Alabaster throwing up and realizes both that he was poisoned, and that he has somehow used

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