He laughs. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll still be thinking loud enough for me to hear it.”

“Oh? You can read minds now? What am I thinking? Go on.”

They’re moving slow enough to keep their voices calm. Spider says: “I saw you talking with Diamond earlier. So you know everything that happened. Is this just a pity fuck?”

There’s no anger in it, just a wryness. A resignation. Misery tilts her hips further back. “Pity? Only if you think that way. I thought we were having a good time.”

He thrums, and Lightning envelopes Misery in her arms, from behind. They both watch him as his movements gain momentum. “Your markings,” Lightning says. “What do they mean?”

“My shipmates,” Spider says, his voice venturing into breathier territory. “One for every person who died. Something that reminds me of them.”

Misery rocks on the base of her spine and says, over the tightening of his calves and thighs, “Tell me about them. What were they like?

A moment’s reluctance, a slowing in his response to her rhythm, and then it’s gone, melting away as he gets into it. Spider begins to talk. About the three hotshots he served with. Twins, Ivory and Fox Quilling, who sometimes completed each other’s sentences. Arbiter Milon, whom he was in love with. The camaraderie in the mess hall, the rivalry between teams, the league table they pretended they didn’t keep. His unit, Blue-1, always jockeying for pole with Yellow-1. The daily red alerts. The parties to stave off the despair. And the sex. Oh, the sex, wild and happy and unconditional, the boys and girls and nixens he slept with, singly or in pairs or in groups. An infinite number of combinations, an infinite amount of joy. Arbiter had this one trick e did, just like this, and there was one kid from Red-4, Leonardo Friday, who had the most intense climaxes, shaking and shouting like the Forge Hirself possessed them.

The more spills from him the faster they go until his words comes in laser bursts, short and forceful. It was all sex, all the time on those ships, on the frontline, where even salves weren’t strong enough to keep them in joy. Not just the pilots, the crew too, even the captain. She came into their multitudes of congress like a comet, like a wandering bird, dipping in and out as she pleased. She was the most beautiful of them all, the most passionate. The way she burned like a sun. The brightest star in their sky.

As he shudders Misery leans over to kiss him and finds his face wet. Lightning’s breath is silk against her skin, fingers clawing into her shoulder and back. Misery, at that moment, is one with the canopy of the universe, infinitely generous and expansive.