Page 10 of Torn

“That’s my secret,” Merry says. “I’ll tell you once we’ve grown closer.”

She’s lying. Yes, she’d probably tell him soon enough. But the part about it being a secret? That’s a falsehood because there’s a tang of dishonesty in her reply. For all he knows, she’s a popular female, her root emotion patent to every exile in this city. Perhaps it’s a fragment of knowledge within a much larger canon.

The wordmerrydescribes a state of being, not a feeling. So that can’t be the emotion she’d been born to wield.

Why keep this private from him? Why be meek about it?

Lying isn’t a favorable sign, but it does get her to chirp less. If only for an instant, enough for him to draw a breath.

“What about you? Did you come here straight from the Peaks?” she asks. “How long did you live there? Were you already serving the mortal realm? Were you banished recently? I’m just so eager to know what we have in common.”

Anger rations his words. “I grew up in the Peaks. I was an archer who made a mistake. Now I’m paying for it.”

As predicted, she lobs more questions at him. What’s it like in the Peaks? What class did he belong to? Why was he banished? What transgression did he commit?

She doesn’t spare him a moment to actually respond. Just as well. He’s not in the mood for chit-chat, but the quieter he remains, the more practical information subsequently leaks out of Merry.

Some of the details, he already knows.

They’re in a city dubbed by mortals as the “Celestial City.” The moniker is a nod to destiny because this is where the stars burn brightest, more than any other metropolis in the country. It’s a landscape of historical architecture, with fewer skyscrapers and more nature than a common urban setting. It’s a realm crammed with glittering trees and a Carnival of Stars at its heart.

Anger hadn’t planned on traveling here. He hadn’t intended to leave Ever, the snow-capped mountain hamlet where he’d been brooding until recently. But he’d heard of this place, known as the refuge where immortal outcasts flock, lured by the location’s starry reputation.

Anger had sneered at the hype until he’ gotten desperate. Curiosity—plus a hodgepodge of alienation, virulence, and selfishness—had won out. Not that he tells Merry any of this. Although he wonders what she’d think, what she’d say, because there’s something edifying about her festive spirit, so void of ego.

Unfortunately, she’sstilltalking. If there’s one thing that Anger cannot abide, it’s nonsense. A great big chunk of him longs to find theOffswitch, but she’s done him a service, so he reins in his annoyance. “Who was that archer chasing you?”

“The bad guy,” she replies. “There are two kinds of exiles here. The ones who hug and the ones who stab. The latter is Malice in a jar—sorry, I should have made that clear before, when I mentioned him clubbing you. He’s a grim reaper with the soul of a sadist—and the grin of one, too—and he’s the one who socked you in the noggin, when really none of that should have happened since the Carnival of Stars is neutral territory. Combat is prohibited there, but we got swept up in the moment, and you didn’t know any better. Outcasts each have their turfs, and we each have our own homes within those turfs. This is mine.” She smiles, flashing that toothy gap. “I’m glad you’re on my side.”

He snaps, “Who said I was?”

“I do. You’re invited. Don’t you want to be invited by me?”

“What does my face tell you?”

She takes that literally, her effervescent gaze orbiting his features. “It tells me that you’re afraid to get close to anyone because…because the last time you did, it wounded you gravely?”

“She didn’t wound me.”

The pronoun just comes out. Belatedly, Anger realizes his error.

“Oh.” Merry pounces, tilting her head like a flexible straw. “Are you a man scorned?”

“Fates. Are you for real?”

“That means yes.” She shackles his fingers, clamping them to her own. “Did you suffer a forbidden romance with another god or goddess, thus forfeiting your status, and that’s why you were banished? How calamitous. You must be world-weary and in need of mending.”

Truthfully, he’s in need of a fire escape. He wrenches his hand from hers, dumbstruck by the way his flesh tingles, so much that he shakes his digits.

A spike of rage climbs up his windpipe, a shout building there. He tears out of the bed. “Where’s my archery?”

“I don’t know,” she confesses, rising with him. “The last time I saw it, you were aiming at Malice, but then you got hurt and collapsed, and it all happened so fast. By the time I got you to your feet, I didn’t see the bow or quiver anywhere.”

He nods. “Then we’re done here.”

“No, wait!” She braces her fishnet palms on his chest. “We’ve only just met.”

He ignores that while strutting toward the doors that lead to the roof. Someplace in the carnival, they’d left behind the sole relic of his existence, his purpose, his worth. Deprived of his bow, he feels stripped, incomplete, and even more useless than he did yesterday.

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