She hesitates deliberately. “I— You must understand my mother was voidsick. Her telling of the story changed depending on her mood and how lucid she was. Sometimes she saw the angel in a dream. Sometimes the fabric of reality split and a creature the size of a sun burst forth to speak to her. Sometimes it had skin of golden lava and sometimes it was a little boy with no eyes, who spoke in colors that had meaning.”

“Angels are colonies, each creature comprising untold numbers. Our minds are only able to perceive one aspect at a time. If the angel showed its true self to your mother, she might have seen the entirety of the choir, which the mortal senses cannot process, so each recollection brings up a different aspect of the angel.”

“Perhaps.”

The Archbishop says: “There’s little difference between those whose minds have been touched by the nullvoid and those whose minds have been touched by the Larex Forge. Our human shells are ill-suited to grasp the infinite nature of reality.”

“Do you think she might be right about me?”

“Do you think she might not be?”

Clever. “Well, you know … Mother always told me I was special because of my stoneshifting. But that’s a symptom of voidsickness, isn’t it?”

“It is, indeed.”

“I’m not a saint. So it seems simpler to assume that I am simply voidmad.”

“And yet the most important questions never have simple answers.” The Archbishop smiles, and Misery’s blood is boiling trying to divine truth from the sealed door of their expression. Is that a twitch of the lips that means they believe her act? The slight draw of their brows—are they overwhelmed with divine ecstasy? “Now, this. It’s not quite a question, but…”

From the voluminous drape of the Archbishop’s robes emerges a bright silver box, small enough to enclose in the palm. Pyrex Imogen sets it on the uneven surface of the table and the box unfolds itself, thin walls flattening onto the bumpy holy jade. It reveals a tiny disc of holy tigereye, over which levitates an amulet of white stone.

“The Tear of Assan,” says the Archbishop. “Do you know what this is?”

Misery’s heart rate spikes: of course she knows what it is. Any child of the Faithful would know. The Tear of Assan, most sacred of sacred artifacts, pulled from the stone of the asteroid where the Eight Messiahs were anointed, where the Larex Forge first made Hirself known to humanity. More than a decade ago the prophet of Calister had predicted that the one who could wake the Tear would be the one to lead the Faithful to victory against the Heretics, ending this centuries-long conflict.

Words won’t come; Misery simply nods. This is a test. She hadn’t expected this, in the way you don’t expect things on wave dramas to reflect reality.