Anger clenches his longbow, unsure whether to be surprised or unsurprised. A default reaction when it comes to Malice.
What Anger does know, is that shadow in the corner isn’t just a shadow. He shoves Merry behind him and whips in the figure’s direction, his arrow nocked. “Malice.”
“Are you sure?” a voice asks—from a completely different corner.
Anger’s eyes click toward the rocking chair, which had been vacant a second ago. Malice’s silhouette reclines, sloping back and forth. The basement window emits a hint of life, the cosmos bleaching his wavy curls, while darkness cloaks the rest of him.
If the god languishes in the chair, then toward whom is Anger aiming his bow? And why doesn’t Malice have the guts to rise from his seat and step into the light?
The misfit sighs. “Christ. I knew it would be a while before you RSVP’d, but I didn’t expect your reconciliation fuck to take this long.”
“Show yourself,” Anger snaps.
He hears, rather than sees, Malice’s lips twist. “Who, me?” The rage god twirls a finger toward the apparition Anger’s targeting. “Or her?”
Merry’s profile veers toward the shadow. Anger’s eyes flick to the unidentified figure in his bow’s line of sight.
Dark hair. White dress.
Ropes tether her arms to an overhead buttress, her lips mashed with a wad of cloth. She struggles against the restraints, growling and stomping her foot. Her eyes—pierced with terror—strike across the vault, passing through all three deities, blind to them.
Love.
Anger’s arms drop, the archery pivoting downward. What the Fates?
Malice tsks. “You had one job, famous Anger. Break Merry’s cupcake heart.”
“What?” Merry spins toward Anger, her face brightening with confusion.
“More to the point, chew up that extremity and spit it out. Cupcakes have the consistency for it. But I suppose I’ll have to take your advice and do the dirty work myself,” their nemesis rambles. “Of course, you’ll still get a choice. Allow me to demonstrate.”
In a flash, Malice stands. He’s got two arrows poised in a longbow. And he’s pointing them in two directions.
One, at Love. The other, at Merry.
He grins. “Go ahead, mate. Choose.”
25
Anger
When Anger was an archer in training, he had difficulty mastering a double shot. Balancing twin arrows had not come easily to him, and his temper had done little to rectify it. Whenever this happened, he’d curse, which only served to further impair his skill, as if he could expect cursing to achieve anything but a migraine.
Sufficiently vexed, he’d sequester himself in his favorite place—the mineral cave, where he’d rant aloud to himself and to the dragonflies, his voice leaping off the jagged walls. His grievances would expand, an army of complaints ricocheting down the cavern’s throat. His inadequacy had to do with blocking as much as targeting, achieving a fluency with his weapon in order to thwart an attack.
Serving the mortal realm, there have been incidents when he’s needed to target two humans at once. By then, after decades of practicing, he could let two arrows fly while blindfolded.
But in this moment, in a lair belonging to a maniacal exile, Anger feels that old handicap twitch in his knuckles. That, amidst dumbfounded shock. Too much crowds his mind, yanking it in a miscellany of directions. He has seconds to register what’s happening.
Then the moment passes, narrowing to one thing.
One person.
Merry’s standing there, in direct range of that arrow. Merry, in her frothy lilac dress and quirky sneakers, those fishnet gloves covering her fingers. His girl, who’s staring at him, her pink eyes scrolling across his face as they forage for an explanation. She doesn’t fear Malice’s arrow so much as his words.
Anger should have told her. She shouldn’t have to find out this way, not from anyone but him.
In his periphery, Love thrashes in her restraints. Anger doesn’t have to look to know that her eyes are bounding all over the forsaken room, searching for her captor so that she can flay him with her gaze. Even when scared, she gets furious. She hasn’t lost that temper, a counterpart to Anger’s.
Nor has she lost her lack of foresight, since she refuses to keep quiet.
Anger regains the presence of mind to whip his bow toward Malice. This is unfathomable. Unless one is a member of the Fate Court, it’s impossible to kill with an immortal arrow, constructed to wield emotions rather than death. That’s what alternatives are for, weapons such as daggers and swords—if one carries those substitutes.
Otherwise, an astute archer will find ways around a bow’s pacifistic nature. Painful ways, using a suitable amount of force to fracture vitals or snap a neck. Or blow the adversary off their feet and send them flying into sharp objects.
Malice is certainly an astute archer. And reckless. And a lunatic.
Go ahead, mate. Choose.
He won’t miss. Neither will Anger.
The only choice he wants to make is to shoot Malice. To cripple him and thus reconstruct this moment. But Anger doesn’t have that choice.
This isn’t about mastery of aim. It has to do with speed, a question of who lets it fly first—who’s faster and stronger.
Focusing on his enemy, Anger belatedly perceives another crucial fact: That’s not Malice’s weapon.
The outcast’s longbow is made from hickory. However, the one he’s presently brandishing is crafted from polished maple and fiberglass.
Where did he get it? To whom does it belong?
How the Fates did he even succeed in capturing Love, when he can’t physically touch her?
Malice’s mouth twists. “I’ve never been a fan of exposition, particularly during the villain’s muahaha moment. Call me prosaic, but now that we’re all here, I’m in the mood to toot my own horn. Or do you want to guess?”
But he doesn’t let them guess, so it goes like this: Hours ago, Malice had advanced on Love in the bed-and-breakfast where she’d been staying. Pretending to be Anger, he’d lured her with a few comely whispers, then rendered her unconscious by waving a sedative in her face, the concoction roofied with mythical pomegranate juice. Overdosing on the fumes, she’d collapsed onto a rug, a tangible object for him to roll her up in and sneak away.
Avoiding humans had required some tactic and a few alleyways. After that, binding Love with ropes had enabled Malice to hoist her off the ground and fasten her to the buttress.
And prior to all that, he’d already pilfered her weapon from the trunk of her beau’s car.
Mentally, Anger fills in the blanks. Love’s weapon…no, Lily’s weapon. After she’d become a human, the Court had swiped her original bow. Nevertheless, he’d witnessed her retain an interest in archery, watched her rediscover the talent for it, an unmatched aptitude from her former life. She’d purchased a new set and must have brought it to the city, perhaps to visit an archery range.
She owns a human bow. And if it’s a human bow, it’s visible to anyone.
And it can kill.
“I do have a knack for abduction,” Malice boasts. “Where was I? Ah, yeah: horn tooting. Seriously, I can’t say which part was more hysterical. Approaching this legendary has-been—,” he gestures toward Love, who’s wearing herself out, “—or the part when I got to use the feisty thing’s own bow on her.” He snaps his fingers. “Oh, wait. That part is now.”
Love squirms. She grits her teeth in confusion as she beholds her weapon floating in midair, about to strike her down.
But I suppose I’ll have to take your advice and do the dirty work myself.
If Anger refuses to break Merry’s heart, Malice will do it for him. He’ll do it by revealing Anger’s secret in her presence, and by forcing him to choose between Love and Merry’s lives, betting on Anger’s hesitation.
That he’ll be torn between them. That his indecision will crush her.
Malice is wrong. He should have
learned not to take Merry and Anger for granted.
Yet Anger’s arms shake. Terror drips down his spine, dread manifesting itself on one such occasion when a deity actually sweats.
Merry. Love.
Love. Merry.
One false move, and he will lose them both. One more minute of silence, and Malice will dump the contents of Anger’s secrets all over the floor, trashing this cellar with everything he should have said hours ago.
“Anger?” Merry frets.
There’s still one set of words that cannot be taken from Anger. Without looking away from his target, he says, “It’s you, Merry. It’s only you.”
She gasps. Malice’s smirk drops like a stone.
Love—Lily—must see the exile’s hold on the weapon slip, because her growls fade.
“Let’s test that theory,” Malice croons, tightening his grip on the bow again.
“All this because you wanted a ticket home? I doubt it,” Anger goads. “What did you really lose in the Peaks? What are you really looking for?”
On cue, Malice’s face warps. A flicker of desperation and…pain.
The most pivotal chink is that he doesn’t justify himself, keeping uncharacteristically quiet. He’s been two steps ahead for a while, fueled by layers that nobody’s had the savvy to strip back.
“A ticket home?” Merry echoes, baffled but not quite astonished by that statement, as if she recognizes its scope.
Anger explains what he should have on the rooftop. The legend and its magical reward. The chance to go home, to be an archer again. Malice’s knowledge from the Hollow Chamber and his offer.
Anger had planned to break Merry’s heart. Instead, he’d coveted it.
He’d fallen in love with her.
There’s a beat of silence, like the hush before a storm.
“Forgive me,” Anger says.
“Not until you forgive me,” she replies.
Malice is the first to jerk his head toward Merry, blinking in stupefaction. Anger’s eyes follow, snapping in her direction.
Forgive her? For what?
Merry cringes. “See, the thing is, I was supposed to win your heart.”
She reveals what she’d wanted to tell him in bed, before they’d fallen asleep. It’s another legend, or perhaps a limb of the same one, with the same magical reward. The chance to go home, to prove herself a goddess, and to advocate for a greater cause.
They gape, his frazzled expression reflected in hers. They’d been imposing on each other’s vulnerabilities, pawing at a goal from opposing angles. It had only been a question of who would succeed first.
“Who told you?” Malice asks her.
“I did,” another voice streams into the vault.
Swathed in a foliage of green that sweeps dust off the floor, Wonder’s figure swells into the room. It has taken her longer than Anger had anticipated to answer his call.
Malice emits the strongest reaction to Wonder’s appearance. His eyes cut toward goddess, from her bare feet to her marigold locks. She has relocated the posy of blooms from a headband to a corsage at her wrist, a mimicry of her fluctuating personality.
The demon god blinks at her with aggressive uncertainty. A rare moment in which action and rationale abandon him.
His gaze slithers from the starburst scars on her hands to the quartz arrow fixed on him. Wonder’s arm cranks back, her bowstring poised to let the weapon fly. Only Anger spots the slight tremble in her grip, the bob in her throat.
She will strike Malice, if she must. She will exert enough force to twist his neck or knock him through a window. But she doesn’t want to.
She doesn’t want to hurt him.
Malice’s inertia won’t last. Anger takes advantage of the boon and steps closer to Merry without losing sight of the demon god.
Can Anger deflect two arrows with a single one? Yes.
Does he want Malice to take that chance? No.
Malice recovers from the spell. “I see the Archive diva has arrived,” he announces. “Anger was too rude to introduce us in the library. But oh, I know all about you. Wildflower Wonder of the elite class. The face of a cherub, the body of a truffle, and the mind of a hot air balloon.”
Anger has never seen Wonder greet a soul with hostility. Even when his class had tortured her, she hadn’t held a grudge. But right then, he witnesses a marvel: a muscle slides across her cheekbone, pulling the skin taut. Her expression, strung between two conflicting and clandestine emotions, finally chooses a side.
Her fingers grow steady on the bow. “You swine.”
“If you insist. Pigs are smarter than they look. What happened to your hands? Looks too intricate to come from a hasty brawl. Formal abuse, then? What did you do to get tortured? Or better yet, who were you willing to get tortured for?”
“Don’t pretend to know me!”
“I’m not the one who’s staring with recognition. Have you mistaken me for an incubus who’s haunted your dreams?” His voice darkens. “That wasn’t mockery or rhetoric. I’d very much like an answer.”
She doesn’t respond but instead inspects the lair with a sallow face. The rocking chair and saddlebag. The crude, antiquated telescope. Especially the crate of sepia envelopes and letters. Wonder absorbs it all like a sponge, the sight dampening her eyes.
Her reaction draws an insulted grimace from Malice. “I don’t know you? Meaning, you’re not the goddess who’s poked her nose into one-too-many Hollow Chambers, sashaying into prohibited areas, looking for clues to nothing and everything. You might’ve never noticed me there, but I noticed you. Uncovered a clause within a classified legend, have you? It seems we’ve shared a hobby.”
“There’s another part to the legend,” Merry tells her.
Wonder jerks her gaze from the room’s arcane embellishments. “I know. But I never thought…” She glances at Anger. “I never thought you’d do that.”
Try to break a heart? Of course, she hadn’t. Anger wouldn’t have predicted it of himself.
Spiteful, Malice shakes his head. “Wildflower Wonder. Maybe if your infamous psyche weren’t prone to drift, you might’ve had more foresight. I said, what happened to your hands!”
“Lower your archery, Demon,” she seethes. “Or I’ll—”
“Will you?” he contests. “Will you really?”
“Yes!” she screams, and it might be at him or herself.
The scene slants, escalating in momentum. Malice shouts something to Wonder, and she pelts out a word of outrage. The noise, noise, noise collides. Love experiences a second wind and wrestles with the bindings, as if sensing an explosion of activity.
Merry shifts nearer to Love, settling a foot on the skateboard. Anger registers the movement.
“Merry,” he growls.
“Choose,” Malice repeats.
But Merry just casts Anger a sad grin, then says to Malice. “He already has. And so have I.”
“Merry!” Anger roars.
She rockets on the board. And Malice shoots. And so does Wonder.
And so does Anger.
One shot. A thousand shots.
Arrows slice from longbows, whistling through the air. Anger’s weapon launches, ripping into the projectile heading for Merry and shredding it off course.
Wonder’s shot pierces through the second arrow, either too late or aimed incorrectly, because the surviving tip keeps flying. Just before Merry can reach Love and block her, a form crashes into the vault, racing across the ground and getting there first.
A human shape. White hair and black coat. Limbs that barrel forward with a speed that defies impairment.
Andrew. Love’s beau.
The mortal hammers in front of his girlfriend and whips up a messenger bag, the only shield he has. It catches the arrow, the head spearing into leather and stopping it, even as he staggers backward from the impact.
For a human, he’d beaten Merry’s pace. Perhaps the adrenaline had empowered him.
Another excited grin peels acro
ss Malice’s face, as if he’s playing a game that has just raised its own stakes. He rips another arrow from the quiver. Anger is already prepped and about to fire when Wonder rams into Malice’s side. They careen to the stone floor, but before Malice lands, he releases the arrow. It cuts a line for Andrew and Love, who don’t see it coming.
Anger does. He’s not the only one.
Merry, who once stood atop a counter in the Ethereal Arcade and played hostess. Merry, who wields the skateboard, whose sparkler eyes slit with determination. Merry, who believes in heroines and heroes, who glorifies romance—and tragedy.
“No!” Anger’s feet slam her way. But he won’t make it. He can’t get to her fast enough, can’t shove her out of the way.
And he understands. He’s about to know what grief feels like.
Merry curbs and sends her board into the air. She lurches sideways, directly into the arrow’s path. The board’s flat surface pivots like a shield.
The bladed tip pierces the atmosphere. And finds its target.
26
Merry
She hears a final, fatal whistle, a mortal arrow spearing the night. The basement tilts, starlight from the low window wheeling in her vision as she catapults the board into space. It’s a trick that she’s achieved before. Except in these cramped quarters, she lacks the leeway to roll up, and she senses the distinction.
A shaft darts toward her, lancing the atmosphere. A vicious tip slams into matter, breaking through a surface.
She hears the impact before she feels it. Her initial response is a proper lamentation, because she’d be more useful if she excelled at archery.
Merry’s subsequent response is carnal. Pain flares along her ligaments and jars up her bones.
Gracious, she’d meant to be the valiant heroine. She’d meant to either rescue the star-crossed lovers or perish in the attempt.
It’s going to be the latter. She’s certainly going to expire.
Her profile thwacks the stone floor. She hears the board crash and then clamor across the ground. The cellar, which had been rife with death-defying conflict, goes silent. Every shout vacuums into her ears and vanishes.
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