Now what? Misery wraps her arms around the stone filaments and spends a couple of moments just breathing. Exhaustion has slowed her thoughts to a crawl. Before her is the slit, an inward turning of the pale holystone big enough to swallow her.

She gazes upward. On one lip of the slit, almost invisible in the dim glow, sits a shallow indentation that matches the ones seraphim mechs have. A small circle, waiting for a token to be placed in it.

The stone is the same color, has the same translucent quality as her mother’s amulet.

Misery’s arms tighten around the filaments of stone that are her only support. If she lets go, if she allows the dizziness to overtake her, she will die.

Mother’s amulet. Mother’s voice, telling her how she found it on a distant airless rock. Mother recounting how an angel came in her sleep and told her the amulet belonged to the unborn child she carried. Mother saying the angel proclaimed that the child—that’s you, my pickle!—would be the savior of the Faithful, and would one day lead the armies of the Faithful to victory over the Heretics.

The same amulet now hangs around Misery’s neck with a weight of its own. The amulet that has been Misery’s before Misery was Misery. It is a key. It is a key that will unlock this archangel. It is the key that will unlock her destiny.

It’s clear what she must do.

Now you understand, sounds the voice of Ruin. Now you see what your life has been building up to.

Mother was right. Mother was right all along.

Misery knows what she must do. She needs to board the archangel.

A spun nest of stone filament surrounds the pilot’s module: the husk of the archangel’s sarcophagus growing vasculature for Misery’s sake. She ducks between the rungs of the ladder she’s climbed and shuffles across the latticework until she’s flush against the cool stone of the archangel. Now she’s next to this thing that has never been touched by human hands. Gingerly she reaches out and presses her fingers to its smooth skin. A faint buzz travels up her wrist and arm. She shivers.

Misery carefully detaches her mother’s amulet from around her neck. With one hand gripping stone filament she tiptoes and slots the amulet into the shallow dip that waits for it.

It clicks into place, just as she knew it would.

The amulet blinks and comes to life. Its carved lines glow and start to move like gearwork. After untold millennia, it has found its way home.

The archangel awakens.