“No problem.” He smiles again. “And listen, if you need a primer on station life, or just a friendly face to talk to, you can come find me. My shift ends in six hours. I’ll be at Eclipse, it’s a bar located in Sector Five-Delta, in the Libra quarter. The map will tell you.”

“Sure.” She thinks that he might be a nice person under it all, but she’s not sticking around to find out.

“Wait.” He calls after her as she begins to turn away. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Silver Tatucha,” she says, borrowing the name of a childhood friend who has since returned to the arms of the Forge. Better to settle his mind than to leave him wondering. She believes in those things.

Between the reception counter and the doors Misery fusses with the map, working its controls to highlight the transit jetties. Shit. Bear Foltzer was right about the distance. And transport will be monitored for sure, probably crawling with those voidcursed saints. No way in the void she’s getting on that. Dammit. None of this is ideal. She’ll have to go on foot, and pray for grace and luck to tide her over, because skill alone won’t be enough. She’s never faced an adversary like the Capital. There’s something so, so wrong about this place. Rot in the center of Empire she can’t have imagined. She needs to get out. Fuck. Leave it all behind.

The first hurdle is the door. And those void-shot saints. The closer Misery gets, the more unsettling they become.

As she comes within shouting distance of the doors, the frontmost pair of saints put their identical hands on the identical handles and pull the giant gleaming slabs inward. Air shudders in displacement, and a wall of cooler, flatter atmosphere comes in. Beyond the doors are lights stretching to the horizon, and Misery fixes her gaze on that great glittering expanse, head held high, stride unwavering. Yet as she passes the gauntlet of the twin saints, one of them on the left moves hir head, and Misery’s concentration breaks and she turns to look. Their eyes meet for a second, long enough for her to notice the pale-gold irises.

Zie blinks, and Misery looks away, heartbeat racing. Something had shifted minutely in the saint’s expression when zie looked at Misery, as though zie recognized her. A bad feeling knuckles under her rib cage as she steps into the openness of the Capital and the doors swing shut behind her. She tries not to let it show, striding over the path of rough stone that unfolds before her. But she mouths a soft “fuck.” She’s got to move quickly.

The sooner out of this voidmaw, the better.