Around her the Capital vibrates like a living thing. With enough effort she can separate the melodies of the different stones that live in the metal of the station: the high, happy whine of holy opal, the warm notes of holy obsidian, the percussive bass of holy tigereye. She holds these lines in her head like reins, ready to pull on them should the need arise. Adrenaline has cleared her head of the lingering salve slowdown; it no longer feels like her mind is dunked in a vat of glue.

The Capital is so big. There is so much more station, extending beyond the thick crowns of these trees, stretching below her feet to a point where her stone-sense cuts out. This light-drenched confabulation, the setting of a hundred wave dramas and dioramas, the center of the aspirations throughout the Empire of the Faithful. Misery would be lying if she denied the childhood hours spent fantasizing the ways she would explore the Capital after getting rich and/or famous. She’d go see the Spire of the Larex Forge, basking under the Celestial Dome, commissioned by the first Emperor of the Faithful. Walk the Messiahs’ Park and do pilgrimage at the gravepods and memorials of the six Messiahs interred there. Not that she cares about pilgrimage, she just wants to see. Maybe she’d drift through the Shiptimes Museum and witness the carbonized husk that was allegedly the mainframe of ALISS, the AI that betrayed humanity. So on, and so forth. In her tender mind the Capital was a place of infinite abundance and infinite possibility and she would take every advantage of it.

She’s a fool. A sentimental, stupid fool. Who believes everything they see on the waves?

Halfway through the park Misery catches unusual movement at her periphery. The terrifying white saints are gathering: a loose, silent cloud turning into dragnet. She casts a sideways glance at Ruin, who strides coolly beside her, unperturbed by these developments. Something’s happening and she doesn’t like it.

“You were identified as you left the embassy,” Ruin says, like zie’s discussing oncoming rain. “A number of entities with different interests are now headed your way. I wonder which will reach you first?”

“Shut up,” Misery says as her heart rate spikes. Fuck. Who was it who chirped? The saint at the door? Bear Foltzer? One of the workers on break? It doesn’t matter. She’s been rustled. She keeps her expression and stride neutral, but begins yawing left. Hidden by foliage is the hanging edge of the park, and beyond that is open fallspace, and therefore freedom. Misery keeps the melody lines clear in her head as she picks up her pace: holy obsidian, holy tigereye. She knows what she’s doing.

From behind comes the heavy sound of boots, in plural. Misery picks up her pace, then breaks into a jog. Someone calls out: “Misery! Wait.”