An epoch-ending sigh escapes his chest. “Fine. You got me. We were once, mm, involved, back when we were kids. Well. He was a kid. Not so much me. But that was a long time ago.”

“You fucked.”

“Yes, Misery. A very elegant way to put it. We fucked.”

“You were his teacher,” interjects the princess. She’s crossed her arms without relinquishing balance, an almost-charming L propped on the Archbishop’s luxe chairs.

“I was a tutor. Plus, he made the first move. It’s not like I was preying on an innocent.”

Alodia Lightning shrugs. Her balance is impeccable. “He was eighteen and you were thirty-five. I said what I said.”

The Duke protests too much for one whose conscience is clear, Misery thinks. “Were you planning to tell me the Emperor of the Faithful is a bitter ex-fling, or was it supposed to be a surprise?”

“It,” says the Archbishop, cutting briskly into the tempest, “does not matter. That is in the past. For the sake of the Empire, he must remain impartial. And we must convince him to do so.”

The princess scoffs. “You expect Abiel to be rational? The man is eighty percent spite and twenty percent old grudge.” Her bootheels thump on the ground. “There’s a chance that he might not be petty about this. There’s also a chance that all our chemical bonds might dissolve and we turn into cremoline.”

“You’re probably right about that,” murmurs Duke Argan, looking at the tops of his shoes.

“Great,” Misery says. “Love that. Love that for me, love that for all of us.”

“We must have faith,” says the Archbishop, and of course it’s faith again, Misery’s starting to tire of these exhortations of faith as a panacea to all the universe’s ills. “The Larex Forge has laid the path before us, but it is not without obstacles. It is upon us, and upon the strength of our belief, to trust in Hir guidance and face those obstacles as they come.”

“Of course,” says Alodia Lightning, but she’s smirking. Her levity is cut with some source of bitterness, but that’s as much as Misery gets. There’s history here she cannot parse.

“Come,” says Pyrex Imogen, rising to their feet. “We must get ready for the hearing.”