Djola hides in bushes to drink mashed seeds and spiderwebs—a dose that will stop his heart. When he leaves his breath body, Mango stands watch. She can rip a tree from its roots. Warriors avoid the elephant and fight each other while Hezram’s spirit slaves chase Djola and Awa. Ernold’s fiends lurk at Jumbajabbaland borders, for ambush.

Kyrie comes through the border-void first. She is mountain heavy and plummets onto a black ribbon of dirt that was once river. She sits on a sun-bleached rock and peels off robes. The silver tattoos covering her body pulse. Kyrie impaled herself on mountain thorns before coming to Council. She knows how to milk vipers and let them live and how to imbibe their poison and not kill herself, immediately. Her blood is mostly minerals, venom, and poison seeds. She is Eidhou Mountain saving itself.

Awa arrives second and tries to give Kyrie the Lahesh folded space, but Kyrie refuses the small bag. Djola drops from the border-void. He snatches Awa up, and they fly on, glancing back only once. Naked and vulnerable like a bug on that rock, Kyrie turns her face to the sun. Spirit slaves, chasing Awa’s and Djola’s fresh blood scent, careen in and slam to a halt. In the hot sun, Kyrie stinks of the cathedral tree oil she smeared on her belly. She smells more like a tasty morsel than a deadly weapon. The spirit slaves attack. Kyrie howls.

Fiends tear each other apart trying to reach her, yet after one bite, their insides explode in clouds of indigo. Mouths that were twisted into someone else’s smirk relax. Vacant eyes fill with light and expression. Hezram’s visage fades from a hundred faces. Most heartbeats are silver lightning bolts like Samina’s, but here and there, volcano hearts tremble and pump blood. Kyrie’s wounds crust over quickly, but she winces with every move. “Flee back to your breath bodies,” she rasps.

Without questioning or thanking her, revived smoke-walkers rush across the border-void. Somewhere in the everyday, a person comes back to themselves. To those who have no breath bodies to return to, Kyrie says, “You could wander a while until you fade or you could inhabit Awa’s Dream Gates, do a spirit watch. What say you?”

Most fly off into the distance. Awa’s mother appears, heart silver lightning. She joins a group that wants to flow into the silver-mesh. “Follow Awa,” Kyrie commands, and they take off. A few indigo haints remain. They snag spirit slaves still coming for Kyrie and explode with them. Finally, nobody attacks her. Indigo haints help Kyrie into her robe. She is light and flies easily after Awa and Djola.