“Disgusting,” adds the woman (Ehi Sodalite, she/her). “To think they would go to such lengths to make their child a saint, when the Demiurge didn’t see fit to bestow them one.”

Misery scans the family unit. None of them are saints. Is she hearing this right? The Apisians’ convo implies that sainthood can be induced in children, which—that’s not how it works, is it? Yet the pair seem sincere in their belief, for all Misery can tell.

Again, what are the nobility of the Capital up to?

The Apisian saints, perhaps catching on to her eavesdropping, have turned aside and continued their gossiping in lower tones. Misery stares at the bored child and its blank-eyed minder. The white-haired saint blinks like zie can read her thoughts. Goose static crawls across the surface of her arms.

A soft ping announces the arrival of an elevator. The couple, child, and saint are first into that clear pod, followed by the whispering Apisians. Misery backs off to wait for the next one. She needs space to breathe. Couldn’t be her, getting into a glass prison with a bunch of strangers and a potential abomination.

Thankfully, the replacement arrives empty, and Misery steps inside for a solo journey to the garden tier. Breathes in and out. It’s ridiculous that she’s afraid of these saints and what they represent when she’s already voidmad enough to hallucinate. But things could always get worse. Oh, she knows how much worse they can get.

She studies her reflection superimposed on the glass as the layers of the Capital’s mantle flash past her. Short-haired, broad-featured, one bold scar tracing a line between eye and lip. She looks at home in the blue slipsuit, which is just as well. All the better to blend in with. Back on Wolf at the Door, the Duke’s personal ship, she was often mistaken for cleaning staff. The Duke had brought her on quietly; most of the crew didn’t realize she was a guest, much less one meant to be exalted.

“Good on them,” Misery says to her reflection. “They’re smarter than their boss.”