Nassun arrives at Corepoint and drags Schaffa’s comatose body to an apartment where Steel says there will be food and water. Nassun notices signs that someone else has been living in the apartment until recently. There are many books in the apartment, and most of them are in a language she cannot read. However, one is handwritten in her own language, so she sits down to read it. It turns out to be the journal Alabaster kept while he was stuck on Corepoint after being taken there by the stone eater Antimony. He writes about how much he misses Syenite—Essun before she was forced to change her name—and Innon, the child he fathered with Essun while they hid from the Guardians, who was eventually killed. He also writes about his experiments trying to use the Obelisk Gate without the onyx and his frustration with the inequality and suffering in the world.

Nassun sees the moon for the first time and practices using the obelisks to feel it and get a sense of its size, weight, and movement. She watches Schaffa deteriorate, unable to help him. One day, she asks Steel if there is any way to save him.