Dalinar flees a meeting between Gavilar and the highprinces. Evi’s death three years prior haunts him. He seeks solace in alcohol and finds a beggar with some just outside. As he drinks with the beggar, Dalinar overhears Gavilar, Adolin, and Elhokar speak about him. They express worry and reveal that they know of his excessive drinking. Gavilar claims that Dalinar misses Evi and suggests a trip somewhere to distract from his loss.

Shallan, Adolin, Kaladin, and Azure contemplate survival methods and how to move around in Shadesmar, where they are trapped on a single platform hanging above the soul of the Unmade. Azure explains that they are in Shadesmar, the Cognitive Realm, where spren live. It is the opposite of the Physical Realm; where there is land in the Physical Realm, there is a sea of beads, or the souls of people and things, in the Cognitive Realm, and where there is water in the Physical Realm, there is land in the Cognitive Realm. Shallan discovers that she can sense what physical items are by touching their souls. She finds the Oathgate control room and a door and alternately manifests them in the Cognitive Realm. The group members move, one by one, toward land.