That is, until the archeress nocks an arrow. It’s a graceful move, made of the wind itself.
Well, she may have velocity on them, but does she have wheels?
Anger catches Merry’s gaze. They bolt at the same time.
Merry jumps, her sneakers slapping onto the board. Anger lands behind her, and she yanks on his hands, hooking them onto her waist.
“Hold on!” She kicks the board into gear, and they barrel down the hill, a funnel of air whipping her hair into a frenzy. Glancing backward, she and Anger spot the pair of archers on their tail, the one she’d knocked down having recovered, his brows stapled together.
Her stunt has insulted them. But who are they?
You know, Merry.
You have to know by now.
She’s learned plenty from fellow outcasts. Belatedly, the arrows tip her off—azurite from the god, pearl from the goddess—and the speed of these enemies exceeds what mere archers are capable of.
Only supreme beings can move that swiftly. Only they would compel Anger to kneel.
In a simpler world, Merry would have been ready to prostrate herself like him. In a luckier world, Merry would have taken the opportunity to greet them. In a pristine world, Merry wouldn’t have been targeted without mercy. In a lovelier world, Merry would have already met them when she was born.
In an equal world, Merry wouldn’t have been discarded by them.
They’re being chased by members of the Fate Court.
That means those arrows can kill.
At this juncture, negotiation is out of the question. These rulers have their minds made up about tonight’s agenda. She’s not going to mollify the Court by curbing her board and giving them a proper curtsy.
She pitches the skateboard down Stargazer Hill, the balmy air lashing her clothes. Anger grips beneath her ribcage, his fingers digging in hard. Hitting the knoll’s base, Merry drives ahead, the wheels skidding across the lanes.
The board twists, veering them east, toward the Enneagram Maze. It’s a jungle of hedges, thickets fencing them in and collectively shaping intersected nine-pointed stars trimmed with fairy lights. They zigzag through, Merry directing the board at harsh turns that force Anger to clasp her tighter.
Will the deities know how to solve the maze? In mere minutes?
Merry beats the ground with her foot, taking an alternate route, one that she’d figured out a few months ago. It’s not the customary way to wheedle out of here, but it’s a shortcut that she’d devised on her own.
At each leafy corner, her heart plays staccato notes. She glances left and right, glimpsing the narrow channels pruned in trembling greenery.
Where are they?
Merry and Anger pop out of the labyrinth. The lovely advantage of having a board blessed by the stars is the malleable sum of its parts. It’s a marriage between what numerous human boards achieve in speed and stunts, despite the variety of smooth or rough foundations. The problem is, she’s never tried outracing death, much less with another person joining her. Anger’s company forces Merry to adjust her stance and compensate as best she can.
Before they reach a stone stairway leading down—crap!—she has about a millisecond to make a choice. Actually, it’s no choice at all since the sparkler path lacks a fork. For such a basic trick, she’s got a tall archer strapped to her ass, which will throw off her position, hinder the ability to keep her weight centered, and…oh, forget it.
“Anger,” she prompts.
In understanding, he leaps off the board, hurtling into the air and flying down the stairs. Parallel to him, she rolls up and kickflips into a frontslide boardslide down the steps’ rail—okay, the initial variation is unnecessary. She might be showing off a bit.
When she turns out and lands, Anger moves in tandem with her, springing onto the board in a seamless transition. This time, his back and quiver align with hers. It’s cumbersome, but their feet root into balanced positions, in case he needs to exercise his weapons.
Merry propels them into the Globe Garden, winding around paper-lantern planets.
Rounding Mercury, the female deity steps into view and waits. Her gossamer gown dances behind her in layers, the cut delicately vicious.
Quirking an impressed smile, the woman raises her longbow.
Merry swerves, evading an arrow that spears Mars. She schools herself to concentrate, to keep going. This is no time to delay by admiring the reigning splendor, not when she and Anger are prey.
The male ruler emerges into the vicinity, his gait burdening the earth while he pulls his bowstring taut. She senses Anger’s hesitation before he nocks, aims, and shoots. He looses an arrow, and then another, and another.
As they vault from the garden, Merry careens into the Serendipity Tunnel.
Gracious, here they go again. She shouts a warning to Anger.
With lightning speed, he stays his weapons and leaps around in a single aerial motion, ensnaring her waist. Building momentum, they catapult up the crystalline wall, rolling along its curve. They land, glide to the opposite wall, and blast up its facade. She does this over and over, zigzagging down the tunnel, dodging arrows ejecting from the Court members.
Outside the tunnel, Merry drives across one of the sparkler paths, launches into the air, grabs a lamppost and orbits it. Midrotation, her board thwacks the male archer, and he goes down at the woman’s feet.
The wheels hit the ground, peeling into the cable cars’ entrance, where a stocky lever distends from a wall. Soaring past it, Merry wrenches on the handle, waking up the cars. Along a wire, they move like a conveyer belt, floating above the carnival.
“Shit, shit, shiiiiiit!” Merry clenches her eyes shut, which isn’t wise, and lifts into the atmosphere. Just as they land in one of the compartments, it wobbles.
Anger vacates the board. He twirls an arrow like a baton, nocks it, and takes aim.
In rapid succession, he does this again.
Howls cause Merry to turn and gape over her shoulder as the woman buckles beside her peer. The force of Anger’s attack has struck wrists and snapped bones, throwing both ancients off their feet and blasting them to the ground. Infused with enough intensity and tact, those shots penetrate valuable parts of the anatomy and incapacitate the deities from wielding their bows.
The rulers swear, offended and surprised. Tottering upright, they glower and then disappear.
Honestly, Merry could have conjured the cars to move, not needing the lever. But she’d been too frazzled.
Likewise, the Court could have used their magic to stall the conveyer belt. But the rulers must have deemed their injuries more important.
Merry wheezes, air sawing through her lungs. Anger collapses on one of the seats, his body inflating and deflating as though attached to a pump. He yanks on the roots of his hair, tugging on the layers.
They’re quiet for half the trip, processing what just happened. Bulbs swell from the Ferris wheel below. Sparkler trails crackle throughout the park.
“What have I done?” he hisses.
“You saved the day,” Merry says gently, lowering herself across from him. “Or, well, you saved the night. I can testify, since I was there.”
“That was mostly you. I’m no savior.”
“That was us. I’m not looking for a savior, I’m looking for a partner.”
He raises his head, mesmerized. Merry scoots closer, the cotton balls of her knees sliding with the rocks of his. At the contact, her joints vibrate, and she hears a sonic boom in her head.
They’d battled together, escaped together. She can’t be prouder, nor more frightened. There’s so much to review, so much to speculate, so much to panic over.
Two members of the illustrious Fate Court had ambushed them. Why? Did they get wind of the legend? From whom? She’s told none of her kindreds.
Only one other soul knows: the one who’d revealed the legend to Merry in the first place. However, Merry trusts that person.
There’s a multitude to figure out.
Soon, very soon.
For now, she and her companion need something easier.
“Hey.” She gathers his hands and whispers, “I promised you my real name. It used to be Love.” Her voice waters, but she covers it with a cheery smile. “That’s who I was. That’s what I was supposed to wield.”
Anger makes no reply. He stares at the weave of their fingers, her knuckles folding over his. Is it an illusion, or is his thumb skimming her wrist?
At last, he meets her gaze. “I’m sorry they were blind, Merry.”
Merry gulps, tears prickling the ledges of her eyes. “I’m sorry for you, too.”
She hasn’t told him much, yet he knows. He knows the Court, and he knows what it’s like to be shunned, so he knows enough. The details aren’t necessary, because Anger understands. That’s what his thumb says as it agitates her skin in a profound way.
Abruptly, he pulls away. The violent movement teeters the cable car, as though struck by lightning. They swing, and Anger’s face curdles, astonished by the extremity of the episode.
Merry can’t fathom why. It’s in his nature to move like a typhoon.
Watching his throat convulse, she recalls bits of their talk in her sanctuary, connecting the dots of that moment to this one. That’s when she realizes something else. The first successful Goddess of Love had been in Anger’s class, which means they’d grown up together, trained together, and served the mortal world as comrades. Anger had betrayed the Fate Court in order to protect Love, so say the rumors. He’d gotten banished for her, and not merely because she’d been a friend.
Yet she’d fallen for a mortal instead.
“Love’s the one who hurt you, isn’t she?” Merry asks. “She’s the one who stole your heart?”
When Anger remains hushed, she seeks to bolster him. With a curt nod, she throws back her shoulders. “Well, that ninny doesn’t know what she’s missing.”
“She certainly doesn’t,” Anger mutters after a prolonged pause. “She can’t remember me at all. She lost her memory when she became human. All she knows…all she knows is that she loves a mortal boy, and he loves her in return, but the recollection of how they met has been stripped, replaced by alternate memories.”
Merry’s hand flies to her chest. “So that part of the infamous story is true.”
“Whatever you do right now, do not get sappy.”
“There’s no need to snap at me like that.”
“I’m Anger,” he points out, snapping some more.
“Nice to meet you, Anger,” she taunts. “You know, when you get like this, your eyes remind me of darts.”
“And yours remind me of sparklers.”
Merry crosses her arms, then leans in and gives him a reproachful look. “Sparklers can toast a person, especially if mishandled.”
“I guess that would be a problem, if we were susceptible to temperature.”
“If I light one in your face, you won’t suffer the burn, but you’ll certainly suffer the blistering that comes afterward.”
“Yeah, our skin doesn’t react to heat that way.”
“I’ll make it a reality, then.”
Anger’s forearms hang over the planks of his thighs. “Is that a threat?”
“I’ve always wanted to experience a moment of tension with a handsome god, a pivotal interlude in which I rebuff him. But it can be an actual threat, if you think it’ll increase the suspense. How very stimulating that would be.”
“Go ahead and tease like a goddess.”
“Go ahead and take it like a god.”
Anger mutters an oath. “What am I doing? I’m no good at this.”
“You know what I think?” Merry asks. “You’re not here to reclaim your original strength, you’re here to find a better strength, the strength you’re destined for.” She feels her cheeks detonate. “Maybe to find someone who will love you back.”
He sketches her face. “You’re a cursed optimist, Merry.”
But she detects a thread of fondness in his voice, which inflates her brain with helium, making her woozy. “How I love hearing you say my name.”
Anger flinches. “You fancy me that much?”
It sounds like he’s searching for a guarantee. “I fancy you more than much.”
“Merry…I still want her.”
Dangling one hundred feet in the air, which is one hundred feet closer to the stars, it’s all Merry can do not to lose her luster. His rejection plays a line of keys across her chest, a mournful organ resounding in the halls of her body. Later, she’ll find an appropriate record to wallow in, the right track to express what this experience does to her.
What in the universe has she been thinking? She can’t expect to win him if he’s claimed by another. Moreover, she’s a flop. She’s the derelict, cast off love goddess that never was. How can she compete with a real one?
Why would anyone love the unloveable?
“Oh,” she stammers, digging up another grin from the rubble that is her soul. “Oh, of course. Of course, you do.” She stands, raising a digit. “I’m just…I’m going to go contemplate precisely how to bear this hardship. I’ll be right back.”
Anger’s voice softens. “We’re dangling in a cable car.”
She sits back down. “I can wait.”
“Are you…how do you feel?” he hazards.
Merry consults the inner workings of her heart. “This is a scar that will last for eternity.” Then she straightens, because she must. “I’m awash in melancholy, but I shall endure.”
His brows furrow like he’d been anticipating the latter: her demise. He must have assumed her spirit would shatter, so his frown has to be the product of concern.
Naturally, there are numerous fractures. That aside, Merry may be a thwarted heroine, but she’s a dignified heroine. This setback is a challenge, because love requires challenges, doesn’t it?
Quick to despair, quick to hope. Right?
The sun has begun to rise, flinging hibiscus and cornflower tints across the city. The cable car rides along the wire, descending and tucking them into the trees, coming down to earth.
She says, “Don’t worry, Anger. You didn’t break me.”
9
Anger
Why the Fates is he relieved?
The goal had been to break her, which he hadn’t done.
His fingers still suffer the rush of her holding them, as well as the rush to pull away. Comparable to the sensation of being torn, it had stripped him in half, into two opposing reactions. Fuck, he’d almost capsized the cable car.
His tendency to move angrily hadn’t been scandalous. As for the source of his rampage, he has no excuse.
Hopping onto her skateboard, Merry coasts ahead, leading him toward the carnival exit. Anger refuses to reconcile the disappointment he feels when she goes mute, depriving him of her chatter, no more words reeling off the mill of her tongue. Oddly, he misses the blinding sheen of her gaze, which angles away from him now. He strains for a view of those attractive fingers and the quirky gap between her teeth.
He should be pleased that she has finally clammed up, yet the void of her fills his mind, just as much as the overflow had. Now he wants to know more, like why she’d chosen a plum skateboard with mauve wheels. Had she matched them to her headphones on purpose?
What’s her favorite song? How does she feel, being an exile?
Why specifically did the Fates reject her? What makes her a dud?
The most haunting question: What parts of being a love goddess has she retained?
Some of the proof has rolled off her shoulders. Those dewy expressions, wistful sighs, and ardent declarations. But what about the rawness of love? The darkness, in addition to the brightness?
Presently, he’s getting a little of it. She wants him, and because he has experience with unreturned feelings, he isn’t proud to cause her pain—even if it’s necessary. Telling Merry that he wants someone else was supposed to break her heart. It should have ended this charade swiftly, got
ten Anger what he’d been aiming for.
Yet Merry isn’t predictable, nor as feeble as he’d assumed. Instead of pacing himself, he’d moved too soon, which has come at an additional cost. The hurt that had smeared across her face. The way she’d fought to keep those features from buckling. The way her pink irises had lost their opalescence, thus dulling the atmosphere.
His rejection had squashed everything vibrant about tonight. Even the carnival is less resplendent while the stars burrow from sight, dawn splashing across the horizon.
He doesn’t want the sunrise. He wants her glowing in the dark.
He wants her light back.
Anger grunts to himself. These traitorous thoughts make no sense. They’re preposterous, utterly out of scale with his agenda.
And they’d just been attacked by two members of the Court!
He’d been so sidetracked by the telescopes and Merry’s lens pointed at him, that he hadn’t identified the rulers until they’d charged. He scarcely believes that he’d shot back, that he’d managed to. But the moment they’d honed in on Merry while speeding from Stargazer Hill, he’d had an arrow nocked without realizing it, a spike of fury thrashing up his fingers.
If the Court has grievances, they could have sent an eloquent warning from afar. No less vicious, but certainly less hands-on. Rather, they’d made a concerted effort to journey here, which they never do outside of a crisis.
They must know about the legend and Anger’s plan to win back his place in the Peaks. But how had they found out?
He cracks his knuckles. Better to keep his hands occupied, lest he take his frustration and shame out on the city’s infrastructure. Lest he open his mouth and seek Merry out, goad her into talking.
They exit the Carnival of Stars, his boots clobbering the pavement, her wheels grinding. Anger turns, glancing over his shoulder to take a final look at the amusement park. The bulbs and sparklers have gone dormant, and the music has long since stopped projecting from Merry’s player.
It takes him a while to twist away.
They travel from the city’s center into her territory. The farther they go, the more animatedly Merry skates, swishing the board in a little dance. If she’s perking up, they must be getting close to her home.
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