She smiles, beatific. Her brother might have squeezed a shoulder in kind support at this point, but Misery doesn’t want to push it. “I’m sure you will. Tell me, what have you been up to on the station?”

He laughs, the tension of the moment broken. “Not much. I’ve been given room and board by grace of the General. I think he doesn’t know what to do with me either. But we’ll figure something out.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be good. The General is very wise.” Misery wonders how well the duchy is doing in the Duke’s absence, but she’s not curious enough to ask. Things work themselves out, they always do. She can’t imagine life on Rootsdown has gotten much better or worse in the weeks since she left.

Without warning, the Duke grabs her hand, and Misery manages to tamp down her reflexes enough to not flinch, draw back, punch him in the face. He says: “I am honored to be here, Misery. For the Larex Forge to have chosen me, among everyone alive today, to play a role in the coming victory—I am blessed. No other word for it, Misery. Blessed.”

Well, if you put it like that. “I hope I haven’t caused you too many problems, at least.”

His joy makes him look like Mother when she was in deepest in the euphoria of her delusions. “None that were not necessary, my dear. None that I regret.”

Dinner puts a restlessness in her that will not be calmed by any means. Misery wanders the hallways of Angelsteeth, balancing on feet still yearning for the treacle of Rootsdown’s gravity. Everything is alien, and new, and Misery knows she traverses the rim of an endless void; a single misstep will tip her into madness and death, a place where she will no longer be Misery and also not care that she is no longer Misery.

Round and round her mind goes.

“Your life would be happier if you doubted less and accepted more,” Ruin says. The delusion floats next to her, golden with satisfaction. Misery briefly wishes the angel were real enough to land a punch on. Instead she just breathes until the impulse passes, and takes another too-light step forward. One foot in front of another.

She’s loath to admit how much she fears sleep. Mother’s worst dreams came when the nullvoid nipped at her soft tissue like winter frost, and today that same tenderness inflames Misery’s mind. Her forced move to Angelsteeth has already manifested one sparkling new delusion, factory-fresh, and she’s not thrilled by the prospect of more, birthed from the stress of dislocation and expectation. Fuck sleep. She wishes she could murder sleep.