On the outside, Monkglass is a station riven by disaster: lights at half strength, constructor drones busy at some distant site, their presence known through the staccato noise of their labors. Misery has been cut off from Monkglass’s system, but she imagines that overlay of pop-up hell, with its chipper determination and uplifting tat, readjusted for a much different tone. The armored guards form a box with Commander Ashe in the rear and Misery in the center. As they march, the muzzles of their weapons make a hungry cage around her. If Misery breathes the wrong way, she’s dead. They barely need an excuse: the rage that emanates from them has the clog and volume of boiling steam. Misery welcomes this danger. She has always thrived in it.

She is not afraid.

Her path is shorter than her previous journey between hangar and command center. The simple corridors melt into a bright, wide space: a multi-floor conjugation of steel forms and pale stone. A medical center. Chlorine laces the air. The convoy marches across the polished, markless floors with Misery embedded within, and with every step she feels the Grace and will of the Forge within her. Between the examination rooms and the clear box of a surgical nave stands a series of salvation tubes filled with nanocrit plasma and the suspended shadow of a human patient. Their trajectory heads toward the singular figure that stands before it, clad in a generous sheath of mourning white. The Lady Storm Mirelle, head bowed in grief and contemplation. A ghostly veil spills from her crown. As they get closer the shapes in the cloudy liquid begin to resolve, and Misery’s chest squeezes as she recognizes the one in the tank she holds vigil at. That crop of hair, with the patterns in it. Esse Temple somehow survived the collision and explosion, and now hangs loosely in the tube, an exchanger clamped over the lower half of her face. She’s been burned: raw pink extends over her skin in wide swatches. And there’s deeper damage: bites of flesh replaced by molds of viscous gel, the protective stone ribs of a regenerator closed over half her torso. Her left leg ends at the knee.

It’s not fair that Esse Temple survived after all she’s done. Why is she here, when Diamond isn’t, or any of the people she’s murdered? The cruelty of the universe astounds Misery sometimes. She tried her best to enact justice, and still she failed.

No—she’s lying to herself. She spent so much time rejecting the role she was chosen for. Didn’t commit to the role until far too late. She lacked in faith. Who’s to say things might not have gone better if she’d wised up earlier?

She knows better now. She won’t be so callous next time.