The day has stretched into exhaustion territory, gill-stuffed with meetings and obsessive strategizing down to the position of each ship and soldier, and the transition protocol between each scenario depending on what Misery finds out at Monkglass. Contingencies running from “Monkglass is crawling with Heretics” to “everyone on Monkglass is dead,” Forge preserve. It’s an ugly scenario, and it upsets the Archbishop to be even thought of, but it has to be prepared for. Tomorrow Misery and Lightning will practice their jumps while the rest of the station gets their garters in gear. The day after that, they move out. There isn’t much time; the threat of being discovered hangs ever over them. But for now they must attend to mortal needs: food, sleep, silence. Misery and Lightning have come to rest in the warm cubby of the shower stall, a routine that Ono Red-2 has learned to give them space for. Skin glides against skin, agreeable in the mist and pulses of the sonic cleanser. It smells like clementines in here. Their own slice of paradise.

Lightning blinks sleepily at Misery’s question, as if she doesn’t remember what Misery is referring to. “What was what about?”

Misery presses the weight of her hands into the princess’s hips. “The Larex Forge spoke to you in your slumber?” She’s not accusing the princess of lying. She’s just curious why she’s never heard of it before this. It would have been nice to know, if it wasn’t something she just made up for the benefit of the upper brass.

“That.” Guilt suffuses her expression and she looks away. “I— Did I dream it, or did I dream I dreamed it? I haven’t spoken of it before, have I?”

“You haven’t.”

“It’s not— I wasn’t keeping it from you, or making it up. I promise. It’s just…” She pulls away for a second, creating a void between them, air rushing to fill the space. Lightning presses the knuckles of her thumbs into her eye sockets, as if as if she could crush the uncertainty out of her mind. “I have the memory of it, so it must mean it happened, right? The Larex Forge speaking to me, in my mind. Just as Zie used to when I was a child.”

“It’s all right to doubt.”

“I don’t doubt it. I don’t! It’s just—I don’t remember when it happened, exactly, that’s all. The whole stretch of time between going with you and coming back, waking up on Angelsteeth … It’s just a big mess. I think it happened then. I think. But if I try to grasp the memory for more than a few seconds, if I try to place it precisely in the sequence of events in my life, then it slips away. And I start to doubt everything I recall.”