Ruin slants against the offending exit, arms folded. “That’s never been a problem for you, has it?”

Misery smiles to mask a range of emotions. Ruin is right, but she’d rather the workers not know that. “It’s fine,” she says. “I have a key.”

“There’s no key,” the hungry one repeats, like Misery is an idiot.

The door in question is rimmed by holy obsidian, the aegis stone, projecting a film of impassable energy, invisible until touched. Misery’s fingertips leave starpoints of light as she brushes against the aegis: old habit, she likes the thrill of static she gets from it. A lively prickle.

“Please,” Misery says. “Look the other way. You don’t want to get involved.” There are things they would be better off not knowing. But she knows she can’t force them not to watch.

Misery’s done holy obsidian so many times she doesn’t need physical contact anymore. Important buildings in Rootsdown were lousy with the stuff, and she’s sneaked in and out of them a hundred times, a thousand times, a hundred thousand times. She shuts her eyes and breathes until her pores are one with the stone. Palms that invisible, intangible switch.

The aegis turns off. A handle’s set into the thick metal of the door beneath, and Misery digs in her heels to haul it leftward. Lemon squeezy. Thank the Forge for supergrav physique.

“How did you do that?”

Ah, right. Misery sighs before she turns around. The four workers are bugging with fear, the deeply held and religious kind. The other tall one, who hasn’t spoken yet, says: “How? You’re not a saint.”

There are two kinds of people who can move stone. There are the saints. And then there are the voidmad. One look at Misery and they can tell which one she is.

“It’s not contagious,” she tells them, which is pointless because it contradicts Church teaching, and You won’t catch it sounds like something someone with voidsickness would say. The stout one has withdrawn behind the others, hands clasped in prayer. The others are frozen in place, but Misery can see fear breaking the bar on their faces. Shit. She can’t blame them, but shit.

“Just forget I was even here,” she says, and slips through the door to close off her guilt. Forge willing, the workers will forget the encounter and go on with their lives, but she knows they’re going to spend the next Imperial week (or month, year, decade) jumping at lights and sounds, wondering if something they thought they heard is the beginning of the end. Anything and everything could be the first sign of madness. She knows that feeling too well.