- We open by picking up where we left off, with Ovida telling Mara and Theremin about how she died a month ago, and the dream of being endlessly hunted and pursued with no relief and endless tension to took her to. Theremin gifts Ovida and Mara some of their keys; Ovida stores it in her body, while Mara strings it on a bowstring.
- Liza, in need of assorted building materials and power tools, takes a trip to a hardware store in Fortitude. While reaching for a dremel tool, she encounters two women and has a conversation. One is Klyatva Norova, a local; the other goes unnamed and is dressed in an unseasonable sundress with flowers in her hair. They talk about home repairs, and it's weirdly easy for Liza to open up to them. Klyatva gives her her phone number and has an open invitation to the Voronina shrine; when they part, a droning sound that might have been a power tool in the shop withdraws with them.
- Cora has a dream of her past, and invites Ovida into it. They talk about how they've hurt each other, and trying to find acceptance and relief from those past traumas. Cora decides to stop having the dream and confronts a vision of her father, who regresses into a baby, and then moss.
- Liza gets home and encounters her wife, Basilisk, who asks after her. She smells honey and flowers on her, and warns her to be careful around her side of the family. We establish that Liza has experienced at least Atrocity, which is named Briareos, in the past. Liza asks Basilisk if she's been doing any remodeling, and Basilisk gets her wife to admit that something strange has been happening around the house. She then makes Liza promise to let her know if anything else troubled her.
- Cora and Ovida visit Ovida's death-dream, and Ovida is immediately caught up in the experience, transforming into a white deer and fleeing. Cora follows and observes her for a time, before attempting to help by jumping onto her back and slitting her throat1. Both are surprised that this doesn't appreciably work, so Cora proceeds to cut off Ovida's head. Her body continues running, but her head transforms back to its human shape and she gathers enough attention to drag them back into the Grotto, finding more immediate relief. They talk some more and Ovida grows more worried, and the fruits of the Grotto begin to wither and turn dry.
- Theremin, elsewhere and alone, sees what has happened and cries
Next week, we get to see Cora hang out with Liza, some totally regular people remain very normal and trustworthy, and other matters besides.
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Ovida is immortal and already does similar activities recreationally, so this is a comparatively normal response coming from a place of care despite the earlier conversation about Ovida having hangups around that time Cora killed her at her request. There's also a callback to an earlier conversation about "the love that should catch and taste me" and how this death-dream is perverse in not having that fulfillment.