Anyway, the Archbishop doesn’t need to know the real truth. Pyrex Imogen nods as they digest Misery’s sugarcloud tale, slow and thoughtful. Misery, as ever, tries to scry meaning from the blankness of their expression. Her eyes water from the effort.

“I see,” they eventually say, cool and still as water at midday. “And may I ask another question, child?”

“Of course.”

“Well-known symptoms of voidsickness include hallucinations and delusions of grandeur, commonly including those of a religious nature. Did you ever consider that your angel was the product not of divine intervention, but that of the nullvoid?”

Misery’s prepared for this one, too. “Of course. I am familiar with the symptoms of voidsickness. My mother, you see, was a stonehunter, and she spent her youth doing long missions in space, prospecting. And unfortunately, the nullvoid took her…”

The Archbishop’s fingers inscribe a sonata in the air, and a new screen pops at an angle opaque to Misery. They read off it: “Amaranth Nomaki, she/her pronouns, born AE 464, passed AE 502 at the age of thirty-eight. That is correct, is it not? Born in the duchy of Pisces, she left as a young woman to join a stone bounty crew. Her first child, Cremoline Nomaki, he/him pronouns, was born on Rootsdown in 482. She left him to be raised by the Church while she continued to stonehunt. Eleven years later, in AE 493, she returned permanently to Rootsdown to have her second and final child. Misery Nomaki, they/she pronouns, born AE 494.”

“Is that all that’s written in her file?”

“Of course not. After all, your mother is a ward of the Church, and has been since you were born. Here is the record of her voidmadness, acquired in her last journey. It is as you said. Thank you for your honesty, Misery.”

Misery nods obediently and humbly, folding her hands in her lap. Honesty engenders trust. That is the weapon hardest to obtain, and the best of them all.

“Tell me about your mother,” the Archbishop says. “I want to hear it from you, directly.”

Misery speaks to her laced knuckles. This time, the softness in her voice comes easily and sincerely. “My mother always believed in me. Since I was little she’d tell me I was special. She had dreams about me before I was born.”

Light and color shift in the periphery of Misery’s vision as the Archbishop leans forward. “What kind of dreams?”

Misery sighs. Lets hesitation into her voice. “I know it sounds like mere voidmadness, but … What my mother told me. When she was pregnant with me, an angel of the Forge came to her and told her she had been chosen to carry a special child. A child with a purpose, which would be revealed by the Demiurge when it came of age.”

“Could you describe this angel to me?”