This chapter opens with a soliloquy by the Duke of the Blacklands, who tells his servant Larry that he is a ward of night souls and a bart of blackness. He tells Larry to show him something that is not right in the hat of holding. Larry tells him that they have hit a "bit of a snag" with the hat, and Larry asks him why he threatened to kill him if he did not leave. He replies that it is not him that will kill her, but that she is a "band of the forgotten". He tells her that he thinks they could be friends if they could just get along.