No talk of the death sentences and sedition that underpin the formation of their serving. Spider is quiet, still taken by Diamond’s ironclad sincerity. “Not trying to argue with the General’s decision,” Tank grouses. Then she turns to Misery. “So you’re the Black Hole Messiah? It’s you? Well. Was kind of hoping you’d look more like Leaf Maruska.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

Time stretches as Tank studies her, equal parts curiosity and caution. “Did you really kill all those people?”

“I did.”

She leans forward, ears pricked and expression all squinted. “Why?”

The poles of Rootsdown are uninhabitable wastelands, freezing blood half the year and melting flesh the other half. Bathory Lake in the north is a popular venue for ice boarding in the cold season, but Misery only ever went after the surface started its yearly thaw, when the fields were already closed and she could be by herself with the rapidly fragmenting ice. It was a skill, figuring out at speed which bits of glossy blue were solid enough to hold her weight. This moment feels exactly like that, Misery skimming across the unfamiliar unknown, avoiding cracks she can feel but can’t see, one wrong turn away from instant oblivion. Mass murder is a hard thing to justify.

She tells Tank: “I was compelled by the will of the Forge. Zie showed me the rot at the heart of the Empire and told me that those who had allowed such things must be punished.”

Tank is unconvinced by broad rhetoric. “What things?”

“A truce with the Heretics. Pursuing peace when their way of life will destroy ours.” Misery takes a risky path across the ice, praying the bottom won’t fall out of it. “They were running unholy experiments on the Capital. I saw such horrible things, like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Oh, I believe,” Tank mumbles. “They’re running unholy experiments on this station, too.”

“Exactly.” Spider points at Ghost. “Again, my question. What is this abomination doing here?”

The atmosphere cools once more. No one has an answer to Spider’s accusation. Ghost tilts their head, as if considering for the first time that they might indeed be an abomination. Around the table, a vacuum exists where consensus should be. Misery, still speeding over the thinning ice, sees a path open before her, shining with promise. Those seated around her are just as lost as she is. In desperate need of something to believe in. She could fill that gap. She could become the direction they crave.

She says: “Ghost is here because they need to be. It is the hand of the Larex Forge that has guided each of us into our roles, here, today. I cannot guess what the future holds for us. I cannot know what Hir plan is. But I have faith in the wisdom of the Demiurge, and I will go where Zie leads.”