Page 34 of Torn

Who is he fooling? He’s not a courtly god. While Envy has skill in sweeping both sexes off their feet, Anger is terrible at it. He’s been floundering all evening.

And his mouth has a mind of its own, because it’s impossible to pretend around her.

“Do I look like an impressionable human to you?” he sneers. “I don’t care how we get there, you confounding female. Just pick one.”

“Okay, but the question was rhetorical.”

Fates almighty. This woman.

Inside the building, stairs corkscrew up the middle. Anger and Merry hike to the roof, surrounded by a cluster of gables and architectural summits dipping and rising from one dwelling to the next.

Beneath a skyline drizzled in the same color as Merry’s hair, the archers cavort from precipice to precipice. She drives her skateboard, gaining momentum and then soaring, executing a series of impulsive—and impressive—spins and flips. And beside her, Anger runs, leaping from ledge to ledge.

At one point, she’s laughing, and he’s…what? What is he doing?

“Is that a smile?” Merry baits.

“Mind your business,” he says.

What’s wrong with him? He needs to charm better, or this heart-breaking business will never work.

She drives the board across one more rift, landing with him on a rooftop fringed in hedges and potted trees. It’s the top of the observatory, with the planetarium at its hip.

Kicking the board to the side, Merry grabs Anger’s weapons—will she stop doing that?!—and stashes them in a high basket. Taking his hand, she drags him onto a lane of ferns and bushes, beyond which he sees a trickle of light.

They navigate the gravel paths, little nooks emerging here and there.

Illumination in every corner. Candles and votives. Twinkling garlands bouncing off the sunrise, the residences, and Malice’s library on the west side.

The same colors of the carnival. Gentle hues of blue, purple, and pink.

The lane opens to the deck’s hub. A makeshift lawn, where a pair of heavily cushioned lounge chairs rest side by side. A mobile of globes hangs from a trellis. Beyond that, a hammock loops across one of the shrouded alcoves.

Above the double doors to Merry’s garret, a neon sign readsHome.

He hadn’t noticed the details before. He can’t stop staring at the sign.

Not until Merry skips ahead of him, her dress swirling. The sight draws his gaze as she folds her hands into a rosebud. “How’s this for our very own Peaks?”

As dawn bleeds around them, the skyline glints from a million windows, and flames blossom from the votives. Merry disappears and returns with a tray of steaming mugs, wafting with the scent of herbal tea. When she offers the first one to Anger, unworthiness flits through him. The ceramic fills his palms, replacing the emptiness there.

They convene on the lounge chairs, where he cradles the tea hard. Possessively hard.

Merry kicks off her sneakers. She stretches along the chair, wraps herself in a throw blanket, and stares at the heavens. “At this hour, it looks like sherbet up there. I could scoop the sky with a spoon.”

As she admires the sky’s yawning colors, he follows the tendril of pink licking her profile. Her nose is too piggish. She dresses gaudily, like a wedding cake, and there are split ends in her hair, which is too thin and mussed. There’s that gap in her teeth. And when she talks, she sounds like a shrill whistle.

She’s far from flawless. So why is he gawking?

Anger matches her position, crossing his arms under his head. “What would you do with a scoop of the sky?”

“Eat it,” she replies. “Or no, I’d feed it to someone who needs it.”

He chuckles. “That’s too generous for a deity.”

Her face slumps toward his. “We’re not those kinds of deities anymore, Anger.”

It’s difficult to hold her gaze, but he can’t say why. It’s even more detrimental to hear his name caught between her lips.

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