The Harbingers reunite at the Twilight Temple, where Trash King reveals that his true name is Grick Vrash Green and recognizes Zandra as Cecil, a woman he believed was dead. The group spends its accumulated light through the statue of Cephas, fully opening one sealed door and partially releasing another. The first chamber contains a Veyan glamour forge and enough glints to shine two weapons or one set of armor. Phelan and Melisandre begin working on Helena's arrows while the others force their way into the second passage. Normandy transforms into a child to enter the narrow opening, rescues Thamarek after the creature falls through a collapsed staircase, and discovers a buried complex beneath the temple. Inside an apparently empty room, Nixon follows returning memories of his former life and paints a doorway into existence. Beyond it, the Harbingers find a sun medallion that shows Nixon a vision of Valens Avarith leading the Vey against the dragons with the Spear of Avorinth.

The medallion lowers a hidden platform and unlocks a deeper vault, where chains and hardened Veyan magic conceal a Black Mirror of Ordos. The mirror shares the black and gold appearance of Normandy's dark scepter and reveals a different distant place to each person who looks within it. Bjorn sees the true Orion Blade inside King Riphus's sanctum in Cadaversia, Helena sees Iris and Lily within their shop on the Southern Eye, and Normandy sees the ocean outside time. When Normandy looks into the mirror, the voices within his scepter fall silent, his shadow is pulled toward the glass, and Ulvarian Titus declares that Normandy's story ends there. The Harbingers cover the mirror with a tarp and restore its Veyan casing, but the approaching green eyes begin an Untelling. Nixon fades from existence as a voice narrates that everything he touched, affected, or became never happened. His painted doorway vanishes, five of the Vey disappear with him, and the unfinished arrows remain abandoned at the forge. Only Rue remains, while Torrin's connection to the Vey allows him to retain fractured memories of the people who were erased.

Torrin breaks through the vanished doorway and leads the trapped Harbingers back to the temple, but none of them can remember Nixon or explain the missing minutes surrounding the mirror. At Keph, Ilk identifies the sun medallion as the sigil of a forgotten king, and the object opens to reveal an unfamiliar landmass. The Knights of Ithelias display ancient artifacts recovered from the gorge, while Sabu now stands among them as though he has always occupied a place in the altered history. With Keph's reservoir still contaminated by the Varian Serpent, the Harbingers recruit Danimal, a Slyphash builder, to determine whether water can be carried from Aurorius Falls. They fly into the Sheer Peaks on their shrikes, glimpse something enormous moving through the cloud cover, and discover a white and blue tower rising above a temperate forest at the source of the falls. A scarred, blue-robed researcher welcomes them as one of the Arcanium's founders, says that they are late, asks why Brill is absent, and urges Torrin to make better use of his compass before leading the Harbingers into the tower.