The jaws of the hangar door wait for hir. Beyond it lies space, unencumbered by the slim ring of Angelsteeth Base’s docks. Just the great unbound, velvet-black and freckled with light. The first seraph in line comes alive, concentric rings on its back bursting blue as the articulated arms retreat. It shoots into the waiting void and its wings unfold, rainbow iridescence sprouting from those rings. It drops out of sight and the next one launches. Misery is propelled to her inevitable doom. The first of her squad—Spider or Ghost?—inscribes enormous loops in the liberty of space, moving with ferocious ease.

Then Alodia Lightning launches in front of her, and it is Misery’s turn.

The articulated arms holding hir body detach. The last one gives hir enough momentum to sail through the hangar mouth. Misery floats free; before her the other seraphim dance and weave in the black expanse, overjoyed by freedom. Misery cannot move. Zie hangs in the expectant vacuum, inert, softlocked in the void. Zie does not know where hir limbs are. The holy labradorite of hir body will not heed her commands. Is Control trying to talk to hir? What must they think?

Zie tries to move something, anything, anything would be better than this helplessness— Hir stoneshifting ability has left hir— How— There must be something zie can do— This is holystone— Zie could always connect to holystone—

Something breaks. Deep in the consciousness that is the seraph Misery, something snaps like an appendix bursting. Zie sees the sad organic thing trapped the stone, pathetically fragile. That’s her—the human creature Misery. Her chest burns. This stone isn’t hers, she realizes. An ugly and sudden epiphany like looking down and seeing your body all meat and all wrong. Not hers, the stone isn’t hers, it rejects her as she rejects it, she needs to shuck it off because something in her is calling to something else, to someplace else—

Misery ricochets back into her human body, her soft blood-and-bone body, kicked off the connection entirely. She can’t see and there’s no air, her lungs scream in her chest and something burns her skin like a laser, she’s being crushed on all sides and every joint in her body spasms as her bones twist. This is it, this is death, she’s come to the end of her luck and she’s paying for it. An avalanche of sparks plays over her vision as the searing pain rears up and swallows her, dragging her into final, blissful unconsciousness.

CHAPTER 17

In death, Misery Nomaki dreams.