Motif · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Samantha's body

Half of a goddess in a sex doll's head: Psamathe's first escape from the Nothing split her, and half her essence took refuge in the nearest unoccupied naiad vessel, a Lika doll. Mordecai: the halves of a split soul 'will always try to reunite', but only in 'a proper vessel' — and when the reunion goes wrong the result is a withering spirit, not alive, not dead, haunting the object with very little power.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 5 — Dante; Sir Rendlegore
• Chapter 11 — Tipid; fifty thousand
• Chapter 40 — Little Günter; a dragon chain
• Chapter 45 — Prepotente's rant
• Chapter 47 — Tattoos, and a flower offered
• Chapter 83 — Psamathe confesses
• Chapter 84 — And then there were two

Progression

Ghazi's letters, remembered: the Mad Dune Mage had tried to animate his doll with the Gate while Psamathe, 'trying to get her body back', used him (ch. 5). When a war mage says they found and took the Scavenger's Daughter, Carl wonders whether that is Samantha's daughter (ch. 83).