Her stomach cramps. He’s been in her head. She could throw up thinking of it. How he showed up, loose-limbed with a gentle smile, and disarmed her with his smooth words. She, who should have known better. She, who prided herself on seeing through people. What a joke. A disgrace. She is furious. She should be ashamed.

The Heretics are dangerous. She’s never met one before and now she has. They’re dangerous and cannot be left alive. She will destroy them if it breaks every bone in her body.

“His name is Jericho Malturin,” says the doctor. For Misery’s benefit. For the benefit of the major and the Duke and Diamond, who had no knowledge of this buried explosive. “He’s been under my care for years. My dirty little secret. Or should I say, the Empire’s dirty little secret. Seems like a lot of them wind up on Angelsteeth. We might have a monopoly on them.”

The major breathes slowly and deeply, a saint’s pattern. Xe seems to be taking this hardest of all. Blindsided by this wrecking ball of information about Angelsteeth, which xe thought xe knew everything about. But the happenings in the research wing have always been invisible to xer—xe commands the seraph servings, what need would xe have of the day-to-day of the scientists and doctors and saints learning the miracles of the Larex Forge? Of course the science wing has its secrets. Of course it does.

Still, Misery hungers to know more. “What’s he doing on Angelsteeth?”

Dr. Sower blinks flatly and impatiently at her. Deliberately misconstruing her question. “Being a prisoner. Unlike you, he doesn’t get to run around and pilot mechs. He’s in a cage. We got bored of poking him a while ago.”

“Jericho Malturin is a prisoner of convenience,” says the General. “By which I mean it is convenient for the Throne to have him imprisoned here. He was captured four years ago trying to infiltrate the Capital. He claims to have been rescuing his father, whom he believed a prisoner of the Empire. However, the venerable Elden Manifest is a defector, and has been working for the Throne for the past decade. The prisoner either misunderstands, or refuses to understand this fact. Unfortunately, since his capture, he has become a political bargaining chip between the Throne and the Heretics. So we must suffer his presence upon this station, and repel the Heretic attacks when they come.”

“And you, Misery. You’ve been dreaming of him?”

The question comes from the Duke. The scheming, duplicitous, innocent Duke. He imagines visions of Jericho popping into Misery’s head the same way as her dreams of the Lady Storm, passive and beautiful. He doesn’t know the truth. Should Misery tell him the truth?