“You don’t sound too thrilled about it.”

“I’m wiped.”

A gentle hand on her upper back. “Come on. We’re done for the day. Food, salves, drinks. Doctor’s orders. Or would be, if I were a doctor.”

Major Reyes watches them file out in sterling, uncontaminated silence. Misery attempts to decode xer icy expression, but its blank resolve resists interpretation. She imagines the major’s gaze trailing her like a probe, following her trajectory out of the room.

CHAPTER 14

In Angelsteeth tradition, the first dinner after the first day of pilot training is held in the officers’ hall, a sacred place that keeps the brass away from the mud and water of the rank and file. An airy dome open to the stars, with a dining floor dipped in buttery light and a plush upper tier sectioned into private booths. The spread prepared for them occupies a long, wide table, a smorgasbord of delicately cultured meats and dirt-grown greens. Each heaping, glistening plate is an illusion, a hologram: as Misery stalks the perimeter of the table she taps the glowing ring beside the dishes she likes the look of. At the end she gets a tray, dispensed from the mouth of a patient render bot, crammed with the slop she’s picked. Not much fancier than the regular mess. It’s all in the ceremony.

Ono Red-2 has split. Only Misery and Spider are at this lavish party, and the latter is busy with a handsome pilot from Xito Blue-4 (Wolf Siren, they/them), who appears to be enjoying the attention and flattery, at least. Tank and Ghost have gone to eat in the usual place, and who knows where the princess has vanished to. Misery lingers unaccompanied at a cocktail table, picking through food she doesn’t quite taste, watching everyone and absorbing nothing. Her mind buzzes, made of static, exhausted from overclocking. A high pitch plays in her ears.

Exhaustion scares her more than other forms of weakness. It makes her feel like a hollow puppet, all clay and brittleness, bait for the nullvoid. And sleep, the only real balm for this exhaustion, is just as dangerous as wakefulness. Misery craves sleep. Misery fears sleep.

It’s been a sucking void of a day.

Ruin occupies the other half of the table, and through the force of the void stops others from approaching them. Maybe. Hir smile glitters like shattered glass. “Your mind has been rewritten today,” zie says. “It takes time get used to a new normal. But you will. You always do.”

Misery swallows a cold mouthful of liquid, citrusy and spiced with carbonic acid. There’s a fountain of cremoline, tempting and milky, and the promise of dullness beckons sweetly. But she knows better than to destroy what’s left of her internal defenses.