Then she gives you a cup. "Here beneath the earth, we drink dust, we dine with bones. Our mouths are stuffed with herbs. What uncoils in our hearts? Extinguish the candle, and drink."

You dream of yourself and the Midnighter floating in a pool of cool, refreshing water. Your injuries are soothed. You feel fears, nightmares, and searing knowledge gently leave your body. But as your mind opened, hers did too. After it all, you are unsure whether she told her confession, or it simply was shared with you. But you know her error.

When she and her brother were recruited by the Admiralty. When they stocked their ship, and hired the best crew, and sailed west. From the start they were doomed. The ship was loaded with a hundred high explosives, modified in the Iron Republic and by the Correspondence, which would convert themselves to a blast of energy. But as they sailed, enemy ships would pull up and attack. Her brother was confident that the warheads could be used, and used all but five of them. Whatever ships approached- lightships, steamers, pirates, their enemies, or even the Admiralty, when they found he was destroying civilian vessels- where sunk to the bottom of the Zee, their crews turned to ash or drowned. It was here the crew mutinied. She helped suppress the mob with the few crew who were on her brother's side- out of fear, not loyalty. And when the Zee moved and changed, and the supplies ran low, she trusted her brother when something would break into their cabins, and slaughter the zailors inside. Then new supplies of meat would appear in the mess. When the thing had slaughtered everyone but her and her brother, and she could see him look at her with consuming hunger in his eyes, she still continued to trust in her brother and his mission.

It was at last they spotted impossible light on the horizon. Her brother prepared every cannon to fire at once, and loaded the explosives in preparation for battle. It was here the Midnighter finally turned on her brother, tying him down, and throwing him to the deck outside. Her brother begged to be let in, but she remembered the howls of mercy the zailors had cried as they were butchered. At last, he stopped, and crawled for the cannons. As soon as they fired, the Machine activated. The Zee itself boiled.

There was only one way to save herself- the Imperious Midnighter donned a lead suit, and ran to load the warheads. The light of the Machine burned the air, and her suit began to melt. But in the end, she fired everything on the ship, but aimed the warheads at the Zee. Light burst into existence, and the waves threw her vessel back. In the end, it was her and only a burning question- who was she blinded to- herself, for trusting a person that grew into a monster, or her brother. The burns of melted lead and injuries at Zee have healed, but her mind has not.

You awake at your lodgings. There, the unlit candle remains. It reminds you that pride has consequences.