Summary

In Chapter 10, which is told from the second-person point of view, Alabaster tells Essun that he "sessed" when Innon was killed. When Essun killed Corundum to keep the Guardians from getting him, Alabaster shut down. When he regained consciousness, he was in a city on the other side of the world. He said the city, named Corepoint, was built around a hole that went into a volcano. The city, a dead city from decades prior, was inhabited entirely by stone eaters.

Alabaster’s description of the hole, which had markers that would light up when a person got close to it, reminds Essun of the hole she and Tonkee found in the Fulcrum when they were children. Alabaster explains that Antimony had taken him to the hole the first day he was well enough to function and had told him that was why...