This atrium has to be some kind of lobby. There’s an information counter, presumably, curved and silver; across from it, separated by a thousand measures of creamy deadmarble, sit enormous doors obnoxiously worked in gold. Parked on either side are those creepy white saints with their diamond-shine hair. The saints turn their heads in unison to look at her, as though they can read her thoughts. Revulsion clogs her lungs and stomach.

They’re identical. All of them. The ones here and the ones she knocked over while escaping. They have to be clones, there’s no other explanation. What voidtouched business goes on in the Capital?

“Custom-grown saints,” Ruin says. “Made-to-order servants of the Capital, bred for a singular purpose. You should get used to them; they’re all over.”

Of course the delusion would voice the worst fears in the depths of her soul. Still, her spine chills and sends cold water running down the fibers of her arms and thighs. The white saints don’t speak. Do they have names? Do they think? Are they walking around with no thoughts and emotions of their own? Are they all void inside? Nausea washes over her.

“This is the ambassadorial quarter,” Ruin says, like a fucking tour guide, completely unconcerned by her disgust and anxiety. “One reef for every duchy, where the ducal staff and ambassadorial attachés work and live. By the Demiurge’s Grace, of course, you’ve found yourself in the Apisian embassy. Home away from home, as it were.”

Shit. Is this where Duke Argan lives when he’s on Imperial business? Will she be recognized? Misery ducks a pair of quietly conversing dignitaries, who pay her no mind, and considers the doors with the white saints. Not them. Bad mojo. She wonders if there’s another way out of here.

“There is not,” Ruin says.

Shut up, what does the delusion know anyway? Misery makes a sharp left for the information desk. She’ll take a guide who doesn’t irritate the living shit out of her, thanks.

Behind the warmly lit silver curve is an inattentive lad: tag reads Bear Foltzer, he/him pronouns. Glossy-haired and bored in his starchy trim. Unlike the white-robed Capital workers ghosting through the lobby, he isn’t a saint, and a measure of tension instantly eases from Misery as she approaches him. Something familiar at last. “Hey,” she says, in Apisian.

Bear Foltzer’s listless demeanor cracks with a grin at the familiar syllables. “Yo. What’s up?”

His accent is crisp and free of provinciality; Duke Argan speaks like this as well. A transplant from the center of the duchy, then. “Listen,” she says, leaning on the cool silver counter, “I’m new here. Just got in with the flotilla this morning.” Fudging the timeline a little. “I need some directions.”

“Okay. Where are you headed?”

“The trading docks.”