All this the archangel Misery now understands. So does the princess, hir companion and hir handmaiden, the two of them made for one another, fitting together like tongue and groove. She, too, has spent a lifetime running from the destiny presented to her, until Misery brought her back and set her upon the right path. Both of them have suffered pain as a result of their divine fates, but that pain did not come from the Larex Forge. It was the result of human fallibility. Misery and Lightning understand one another like no one else can. They are each other’s mirrors, after all. Indivisible until the end of time. Together, they—archangel and liberated seraph—learn to take measured leaps away from Angelsteeth, first the hesitant step of half a parsec, followed by a full parsec. Then two, four, eight, sixteen. Each time they gain more confidence in their movements. More joy. Misery remembers the first time they jumped together through the vastness of space, when they were only mortal and so tiny, so fragile and foolish. Awe had ripped them asunder as they were transported toward the archangel. Now they are that awe incarnate, with their colossal and tireless bodies, whose forms inspire ineffable emotions in the human mind. They have become death, destroyers of worlds. They have become life, the origins of species. Both are aspects of the Forge.

The evening before the great operation, Ono Red-2 dines in private by request of Diamond, who wants space from the wide-eyed clamor of the greater banquet of Angelsteeth. Time to think in silence, unobserved and unjudged by the swathes of rank and file who have yoked their hopes and existences to what plays out tomorrow. Oven-hot trays are brought to their quarters. It’s a plain meal, quiet: rice and slot-grown veg in mild gravy, slivers of fish protein. To eat extravagantly before a major operation is bad luck. Puts one in a last-meal mindset. Invites the nullvoid.

“You weren’t there when the General made their speech to the masses,” Spider says. “I thought they’d want their Messiah there, say some pretty Forge-touched words for the soul.”

“What did they say?”

“Oh, nothing important. Rabble-rousing speech, talk about sacrifice and gratitude and faith that we’ve been put here to do the right thing. You know, the usual.”

“You think it would have gone better if I was there.”

“Frankly? No. It’s all bluster. Hollow words. Wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“Words make all the difference,” Lightning says quietly. “They always do.”

In the lull after, as food makes heavy the bellies of those who eat, Misery drifts to Ghost’s side. Ono Red-2’s quietest member sits by themself, observing the rest with a fevered expression. Gravy gleams at the bottom of their tray. “What are you thinking?” she asks them.

“Not much,” they say.