And that’s it. Misery won’t get anything useful out of this meeting. Except this: she’s out of the cell. She’s surrounded by holystone. It’s now or never, if she’s making a break for it. She curls her hands as she reaches outward, seeking the closest disc of holy obsidian she can find—

The Lady Storm twists around, face drained of all color, as if she’s just read Misery’s mind. “Stop her!”

How—? Taken by surprise at being caught, Misery doesn’t break into a lunge until it’s too late. Something fires, something hits her in the back of her neck, a small sharp snap like an angry finger flicked. Misery stumbles, and then the floor is rising toward her. Impact on her chin and her vision bursting into black nebulas. Her legs, she can’t move her legs, and in fact her whole body is deadweight. She can’t draw breath, can’t turn her head. Poison? A paralytic? What have they done to her?

Boots surround her and block her whole field of vision. Someone wrenches her arms behind her back and cold envelops her wrists, locking them in place. Not that it’s needed. She can’t move, she can’t do anything. The world is muted, muffled. This is some ultrasalve they use on the dangerous condemned, something experimental that’s dulling her mind so much she can’t even stonebend.

“It didn’t have to come to this,” says the Lady Storm from somewhere above her. She sounds less angry than sad. “I’d hoped to understand you, Misery Nomaki. But there’s no reasoning with this kind of hate.”

If Misery could answer, she’d say: You don’t understand. You don’t know what the nullvoid does. One day you’ll find out why you’re wrong. One day you’ll be sorry.

A ship comes to take them to the Capital as promised. Misery, heavy and sickened with salves, lets a flock of soldiers drag her from cell to hangar, where a boxy shuttle in Imperial red waits to transfer her to a ship. She can’t fight them. Time has melted. Has it been days or weeks since she failed her mission? She doesn’t know and has no way of telling. After that meeting with the Lady Storm, she’s been repeatedly filled with drugs that slow her down and dull her mind until she can barely hold a thought in that fog. Walker jeans keep her moving from the waist down, without which she would crumple like a pile of cotton.