Misery closes in on the seraph that will be hers. The nearer she draws, the less it looks like machine and the more it looks like firmament. Like abstract geography that rears over her head, relief and depression in grays and iridescence. The mesh steps that coil around its side look like they could circle a moon. By the time she’s climbed up to the mounting platform, stretched across the seraph’s central carapace, she’s breathing hard. It’s not Angelsteeth’s watery gravity doing that.

Misery walks to the center of the platform, sharply aware that its mesh floor is the only thing that stands between her and a fifty-foot drop. Heights mean nothing to her, but she’s never felt so tiny. She looks up at the surfaces of the seraph. Pure holystone. The whole time she’s been on the station she’s been aware of these lumpen bulks of holy labradorite, a constant background tug. Now it’s in her face, its song pounding like seismic surf, or what she imagines surf to be. Misery’s soft mortal body stands in juxtaposition against the behemoth she’s supposed to take charge of. The sheer power contained within awakens the blood in her heart. She breathes, Saint Agneta’s pattern: four in, six hold, seven out. This is holy stuff, reminding her of awe she felt in the churchhall as a child, before the gangrene of cynicism set in.

No. Why the sudden nerves? It’s fine. She excelled in all the simulations. Her training has prepared her for this job exactly. She can do this. She can do this.

“You are not prepared,” Ruin says. “They had no idea how to prepare you, did not know what they were preparing you for. But that’s a good thing. You shall show them what you have come here for.”

The delusion will not get to her. Zie will not damage her confidence. She will be fine. Everything will be fine.

“It will be fine. You shall see.”

In the center of the seraph’s massive, arrow-shaped chest, a circular indentation sits where the ingress to the heart would be. The platform’s at the perfect height to access it. Misery squeezes the gel casing around her neck to release the stone token, which fits perfectly. It goes in with an audible click.

Stone folds over stone. Light bleeds from the joints of the arrow. A low rumble shakes the frame of the platform, and the seraph wakes.

Seized by instinct Misery steps backward as the arrow sublimes like plastic under fire, revealing a pilot capsule exactly like the ones she’s practiced in. Familiarity, right? Yet her buzz of anxiety only grows. Steps gleam in the flesh of the seraph, and Misery gingerly climbs their slippery surfaces, trying not to think about falling. Her mother’s amulet grows strangely hot against her breastbone.

It’s fine. Everything’s fine. She’s been through worse.