“Does it matter what they know?” asks Ruin. The angel is propped on a locked silver cabinet, full of the General’s personal secrets. “As long as you get what you want, does it matter to you?”

The angel baits her with barbed questions. Misery’s jaw tightens. She knows what true prophetic dreams are like, and she knew that her dreams with Jericho were not that, and yet—She will never let anyone else know the content of these dreams. “He came into my mind while I lay asleep,” she says. “He concealed his identity from me. Pretended to be a friend. But his true nature was revealed to me and I banished him from the arches of my mind.”

“He came to you?” Dr. Sower blows air through her lips. “Well, shit.”

“You sound surprised by this.”

“We tested him for telepathy,” the doctor says. “That’s the research his dad is doing in the Capital. Got some idea that it’s the way to communicate better with the Larex Forge. I think he’s kind of a whackjob, but whatever. We did all kinds of tests. The conclusion: he can’t read minds, exactly. Maybe some mild empathy, able to perceive emotions, even subconscious ones. We thought we had him worked out. But invading people’s dreams. Is that a thing? Guess it is. Shit.”

“A voidtouched ability,” Lightning says. “As expected of a Heretic.”

“Fuck that,” Dr. Sower says. “Should have salved him into the void. You bet both asses that we’re going to do that now. Stuff that could knock an entire banquet out. Make sure he doesn’t have another conscious moment until, you know. Y’all come to a decision, one way or another.”

Dr. Sower thinks they might execute him for his transgressions, and she has the right idea. She’s dealt with Jericho personally, she knows the danger that lurks under his soft exterior. But it’s too late for Misery. They should have done him in a long time ago. “He is too dangerous to keep alive,” she says.

Dr. Sower taps fingers against her pensive chin. “Is that why you asked about voidsickness? Why you thought you might be voidmad?”

Clever. Sharp. She remembers that conversation from before Misery’s enlightenment. “Yes,” she says. Let her think that. Let her blame Jericho, who should have no sympathy afforded to him. “I knew those dreams weren’t normal. I thought they might be the work of the nullvoid.”

“So what does this mean?” The Duke is perplexed, he continues to be perplexed, he struggles with the amount of information he has had to digest. “Is this not a sign, then? Is this the work of the nullvoid, thwarting us from the Forge’s intended path?”