The next morning, Zale arrives at the hostel and explains that they requested the assignment because they are fascinated by Halla’s case. When Sarkis questions their qualifications, Zale details their five years as a legal clerk and experience as an “advocate divine.” Zale presents the Temple’s brightly painted wagon, which is drawn by a single ox and driven by a gnole named Brindle.

As they travel, Sarkis asks why their god is a rat. Zale explains that the faith began 800 years ago as a cult to appease the rat spirit during a time of plague. They pass a town square where the Motherhood (the Priesthood of the Hanged Mother) has recently burned books. A mounted Motherhood warrior approaches and questions them, but Zale relies upon their authority as a priest of the Rat and refuses to reveal their destination. The warrior makes a veiled threat, claiming that the roads are dangerous for those not under the Mother’s protection. That evening, Zale explains the Motherhood’s attitude of rivalry toward other faiths. Sarkis volunteers to bed down outside the wagon that night. Zale vouches for Brindle’s trustworthiness, and Sarkis settles down in the cold.

The next morning, Halla expresses her enjoyment over the journey, as the current conditions are better than her awkward trek through the hedgerows with Sarkis. As Sarkis watches her lick bacon grease from her fingers, his gaze lingers on her mouth, flustering her. On the road, Zale questions Sarkis about his healing abilities, and Sarkis offhandedly reveals that a former wielder used to enjoy cutting out his tongue, which always grew back. Horrified, Halla takes his hand in sympathy. When Zale asks what happened to the severed tongues, Sarkis does not know.

Zale proposes to conduct an experiment, then asks what happens when Sarkis urinates. After some awkward clarification and considerable embarrassment, they all conduct an experiment to see if Sarkis’s urine remains in the world or vanishes into the sword. Halla provides an empty jam jar, which Sarkis fills. When Halla sheathes the sword, both Sarkis and the jar’s contents dematerialize into blue light. Zale and Halla erupt in uncontrollable laughter over the successful experiment and its absurdity. When Sarkis rematerializes, Zale explains that anything Sarkis produces dematerializes along with him.

Suddenly, two Motherhood priests, including one from their previous encounter, ride up. One comments on Halla’s large sword. She deflects with a long, seemingly naïve speech, breezily saying, “I’m told it’s not the size of the sword that matters. […] Although my husband used to say that, and do you know, he never told me what it meant?” (201). When the flustered priests demand to search the wagon, Zale refuses, citing legal authority. At the moment of highest tension, Halla bursts into tears, playing the part of a distraught woman. The uncomfortable priests retreat. Once they are gone, Halla stops crying. The group then engages in bawdy sword-based euphemisms, which Brindle ends with the deadpan comment that “a gnole’s ox is bigger than a human’s sword” (205).

When Zale and Sarkis go to an inn to buy food, Halla asks Brindle about the ox’s name. He says that in his language, it translates to beautiful hooves. Halla suggests that a good translation would be “Prettyfoot.” The next day, the Motherhood riders pass the wagon with only a hostile look. Sarkis suggests that they are harassing the group because Zale defied them. Hearing this, Zale realizes that because the Rat Temple provides advocates and legal opposition, it has become the public face of defiance to the Motherhood. Zale jokingly offers Halla a discount on their commission, accepting her suggestion that the Rat Temple charge her 19% instead of 20%.

The conversation turns to the sword’s magic. Zale theorizes that the sorcerer-smith was a genius who built self-fueling magic. Sarkis remarks that the smith seemed “as mad as the mist and snow” (209). Sarkis introduces the word “zeth” from his language, defining it as a type of evil where one knows right from wrong but does not care. When Halla asks if the sorcerer-smith was “zeth,” Sarkis admits it is possible. He decides not to tell Halla the full story of his entrapment until she is safe and her inheritance is secure, acknowledging to himself that he fears losing her if she learns the truth.

That evening, the two Motherhood priests block the road again, insisting on searching the wagon. After another standoff, Zale finally relents in order to prevent Sarkis from erupting into violence. The priests find a secret compartment containing money and a crossbow, which Zale dismisses as sensible precautions. Finding nothing incriminating, the priests leave with a final threat.

Zale asks what happened to Sarkis’s body when he was first bound to the sword. Sarkis recalls the sorcerer-smith quenching swords in the heart blood of Angharad and the Dervish and recalls that their bodies fell rather than vanishing; the memory still haunts him, and Halla comforts him. Zale concludes that Sarkis is, in fact, dead. Sarkis laughs, confirming that he has died many times but does not stay that way for long.

Zale expresses hope that Sarkis is not a ghost, as that would make them necromancers. The priest explains that necromancy is the most heinous of all crimes and recounts a historical case of a healer who chained souls to their decaying bodies until paladins finally killed him. They discuss whether the sorcerer-smith could have been a necromancer. Sarkis drinks a waterskin of water to indulge Zale and Halla’s desire to conduct another experiment to determine how the magic of the sword works.

The next day, Zale recounts the various experiments they have conducted and summarizes their findings: The sword resets Sarkis’s body completely. Zale praises the genius of the sorcerer-smith, who designed self-fueling magic that gives Sarkis a temporary body and uses its processes for power; this arrangement makes Sarkis theoretically immortal. Sarkis confesses to being tired of immortality; he wishes to be allowed to die someday. Troubled, Halla protests, and Sarkis takes her hand and reassures her that he does not wish to die right now. As the mood lightens, he looks at her lips and regrets having stopped at only one kiss.

Zale spots the two Motherhood priests blocking the road again. Frustrated by the priests’ continuing harassment, Halla gets down to confront them, shouting and bursting into semi-genuine tears. The priest, Scar, panics and shoves her away, causing Halla to trip on a rock and fall. Seeing his wielder knocked down, Sarkis instinctively charges and attacks. The other priest, Red, tries to join the fight from horseback, but his horse bumps the ox. The annoyed ox shoves back, dragging the wagon sideways. Suddenly, an arrow hits Red in the throat, and he falls dead. At the same time, Sarkis kills Scar. Brindle is revealed to be holding the crossbow. Zale mournfully announces that this is going to be a problem.

Stricken with remorse, Halla and Zale blame themselves for the incident, although Sarkis observes that he and Brindle did the actual killing. Zale goes aside to pray but vomits instead. Returning, the priest decides they must hide the bodies to protect themselves. Halla surprises Sarkis by remaining calm and noting that the ground is too frozen for a grave. When Sarkis expresses his surprise, she explains that she has laid out many bodies and is not frightened by them. They wrap the corpses in blankets and load them into the wagon. Sarkis takes the priests’ horses away to release them.

While he is gone, Halla suggests sinking the bodies in a frozen pond, and Zale agrees. A goatherd passes them on the road, and Halla makes awkward conversation. When Sarkis reaches the sword’s range limit, he dematerializes, causing the sword to click shut and Halla to yelp. The goatherd moves on, likely thinking that they are strange. Halla summons Sarkis again.

That night, they sleep huddled against the ox for warmth, as the bodies remain in the wagon. Sarkis pulls a sleeping Halla onto his lap, struggling with his desire for her. Brindle observes his restlessness and tells him to go to sleep.

The next morning, the group is still on edge about the corpses in the wagon. Brindle smells a pond nearby, and they take the wagon down an overgrown track into an acorn wood. Finding the slushy pond, Sarkis and Brindle chop a hole in the ice, and they all sink both bodies and cover the hole with branches.

They continue down the track, looking for a place to turn around. The track becomes a “hollow way,” a deep, narrow path worn into the earth. Sarkis feels that the path is a trap. They emerge onto a hillside surrounded by hills with early autumn foliage. Brindle declares that they have gone out of a hollow but into something worse.

Zale and Halla identify the location as the Vagrant Hills, a magical, shifting region known for trapping travelers. Zale speculates that the Hills may have moved to get a closer look at Sarkis. Halla checks the road and determines they cannot turn around on the narrow ledge. When Sarkis pulls her back from the cliff edge, his arms linger around her. After much discussion about what to do, Brindle matter-of-factly urges the ox forward, stating that moving is better than talking. He recalls that his cousin encountered strange creatures here, including the rune. Zale confirms that the rune are an intelligent race of stag-people.

Suddenly, Sarkis spots a rune warrior ahead. A large rune with velvety antlers steps into the road and signals them to stop. When a human woman arrives to translate, she confirms that the rune will not fight unless provoked. The rune asks Sarkis whether the sword is his “house.” When he agrees, they say it is a bad house and ask if he wants the sword house “gone.”

Stunned by the offer of freedom, which might mean his final death, Sarkis is tempted to accept. However, he is unwilling to abandon Halla before her quest is complete and privately realizes that he would be willing to spend the rest of her life with her before seeking release from the sword. Out loud, he admits that he is not ready to die, and he declines the rune’s offer for now. He tells Halla that they can try to return after she is safe, but Zale warns that the Vagrant Hills might not be so easy to find again in the future. The rune leader accepts his decision and leads his people back into the woods.

As twilight falls, the group is unnerved to hear strident whoops and shrieks coming from the woods. They make camp, and Brindle lights a fire for protection. After midnight, Sarkis sees a transparent, oily creature pass overhead, distorting the stars. Suddenly, a loud shriek erupts next to him, and Sarkis is chagrined to realize that the noise is caused by a small, squirrel-like creature with huge eyes and ears. As Sarkis reassures Halla and Zale, the transparent oily creature drops from the sky and lands on him.

The gelatinous monster attempts to crawl into Sarkis’s mouth and under his armor, and he panics. Halla sheathes the sword, causing him to dematerialize. As the creature falls to the ground, Brindle stabs at it with a burning branch, and it recoils from the fire and flies away. Zale realizes that the small animals had been making alarm calls to warn of the predator. Halla draws the sword, and a shaken Sarkis reappears. He and Brindle build up the fire while Halla and Zale watch from the safety of the wagon.

A little before noon, they encounter a deer stumbling on the road, covered in one of the slime creatures. The deer is clearly dying. Brindle shoots it as a mercy killing. The sky-swimmer detaches from the corpse and flies to a branch, becoming inert. Sarkis drags the deer carcass off the road, noting that the strange predator inflicted lamprey-like sores.

They enter a section where the trees are filled with dozens of dormant sky-swimmers. Trapped in another hollow way, they are forced to drive slowly beneath the hanging creatures. Halla is so terrified that her mind races, and she contemplates her potential death and regrets her failure to confess her feelings for Sarkis. She debates telling him she loves him right now but decides that doing so would be unspeakably awkward.

At the end of the hollow way, one sky-swimmer hangs low enough over the path to block the wagon. Halla and Zale dismount and carefully walk under it, then Brindle drives the wagon through, using his long ox goad to lift the creature just enough for the roof to pass beneath. The edges of the creature ripple, but the wagon clears safely. After another half hour, the landscape shifts back to late autumn, and as the road enters another hollow way, Brindle says he smells something familiar. They are exasperated to realize that they have emerged at the pond where they hid the bodies, but they are glad that the Vagrant Hills have let them go. Twenty minutes later, they are back on the main road to Amalcross.

That night, Halla suffers a nightmare about the sky-swimmers. Zale tries to wake her, and Sarkis rushes in, initially thinking that the priest is attacking her. Halla wakes and clarifies that it was just a dream. Sarkis comforts her, holding her in his arms. He reveals that he rarely dreams, and when he does, he dreams in silver. Halla worries that they will not be able to return to the Vagrant Hills to free him, but Sarkis reassures her that they can find another way.

They arrive back in Amalcross, where Bartholomew welcomes them and introduces them to his current guest: Nolan, a scholar-priest from the Order of the Sainted Smith. Nolan explains that his is an obscure order that is interested in artifacts. Sarkis grows wary when he notices Nolan’s eyes lingering on the sword. Zale asks Bartholomew for a signed statement to support Halla’s inheritance claim, and Bartholomew apologizes profusely for not offering to help sooner. Instead of writing a letter, he declares that he will travel to Rutger’s Howe to testify in person, though he insists on making his own way there rather than crowding into their wagon. Sarkis feels a sharp, jealous impulse as Bartholomew and Halla exchange hugs.