“I regret you could not be cured in one night,” Warden Worth said, looking at Amy. “But your disease has reached an advanced stage. It will be a difficult procedure.”

“I don’t have a disease,” Amy said.

“Oh, but you do. And now you shall join your friends. It is good to have new patients, for there are so many cures I have yet to try. Dr. Cotton’s Theory of Organ Removal. The Rotational Machine. Hydrotherapy Baths. Total Immersion.”

“Listen to me,” Amy shouted, raising her voice and projecting across the Showroom. “You don’t have to be here anymore.”

The shapes gave no indication of having heard her.

“Amy?” Basil hissed. “What the hell are you doing?”

“But ultimately we shall rely on toil,” the warden was saying. Amy didn’t know whether it was her imagination or whether his voice was getting louder, as if he was trying to drown her out. “It will be the backbone of your cure. For toil is the great grinding stone to make keen the blade of your spirit. Toil is the ladder by which your putrid flesh ascends into health.”

“You have served your time!” Amy continued. “Any sentence you had is long over. What did you do? Kill people who would be dead now anyway? Steal food for your families who are already in the ground? Owe money to a company that has been out of business for a hundred years? You’ve paid for your crimes.”

“Beware the words of liars who lure you into weakness!” Warden Worth shouted. “You know the weight of your own sin, which shall never be relieved. Expiation unto eternity. That is the only path to wellness, the only true command.”

“No one’s keeping you here,” Amy said. “You’re not chained, you’re not sick, you don’t need a cure. You can walk away at any time. That’s all you have to do. Walk away. You can be free!”

A muddy restlessness passed through the penitents.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Basil whispered.

“Free!” Amy said, doubling down. “This isn’t a prison anymore. It collapsed decades ago. Its walls are gone. No one remembers your crimes!”

“Freedom through work!” Warden Worth screamed, hysterical. “That is the only freedom! For work is the whip that mortifies your failed flesh and shapes your sins into something more pleasing, something more—”

“You aren’t in chains anymore!” Amy shouted over him. “Your sentences are just habits. You’ve been free for decades—you just never realized it!”

“She’s a liar!” Josiah shrieked. “She’s filling you with honeyed words and false hope. Tonight has but one conclusion. There are no other paths to travel. There is only one end.”

There was silence for a moment, a second when Amy felt that anything could happen. Then Warden Worth stumbled forward, shoved from behind. Splashing across the wet floor, he whirled around.