Page 99 of Torn

Two of the five members appear, completing the diorama of immortals within the room. The goddess has dark skin, her gossamer gown like butterfly wings. Her accomplice is a god with a hawkish nose and a flood of hair to his waist, a pair of braids swinging like ropes within the mane.

It’s the same pair that had pursued Merry and Anger in the carnival. The ones who had vacated their thrones in the Peaks, on a mission to attack them.

The female is the one who had spoken. The gossamer goddess.

It’s odd to feel both dazzled and resentful, to feel longing and resistance. Merry senses residual obedience radiating from Anger, two centuries of routine drilled into him, climbing up his legs. He’s fighting the urge to kneel, to prostrate himself.

Likewise, Merry feels it, and maybe Wonder does as well. But none of them yield.

Anger shifts protectively toward Merry, an action that causes an ache in her chest. He won’t let them harm her. She won’t allow it either, so she sidesteps his proximity and stands on her own.

Something, everything, has transformed in her. She likes what it does to the set of her shoulders.

The rulers scan the archers, the messy remnants of their conflict. Malice, bloodied on the floor, the volatile picture of indulgent madness, on the verge of cackling grimly at the scene. He’d lied to the Fate Court, uncovering a legend and then conspiring with Anger, fixing to reclaim their places in the Peaks and then backing their sovereigns into a corner by undermining them.

Malice had attempted to end Love, an offense despite her humanity. Merry hasn’t grown up with these leaders, but she knows enough from others in the city, from what Wonder and Anger have told her, from tales and visions within the stars, and purely from the Court’s demeanor.

Humanity aside, Love is theirs to contend with. Not Malice’s.

That he’d instigated this turn of events, planting the rotten seeds to begin with, tickles him pink. That the Court members can spear him in half for the indiscretion doesn’t seem to faze him. Or if it does, he can’t care less.

The Court regards Wonder, who’d deserted her post in the human realm in order to assist inferior outcasts. Wonder and her scars—the evidence of some past defiance and ensuing punishment, which she hasn’t learned from. Here she is again, not learning from her past, dabbling with the forbidden.

There’s Merry, bowless and untrained. According to them, she’s a failed star, a loss of potential. According to herself, she’s an outcast who’d nevertheless outmaneuvered them through an amusement park.

And there’s Anger. In their view, he’s a renowned disappointment, second only to infamous Love.

Silence permeates the lair. A dozen unspoken motives litter the area like pins. Some are easily interpreted, others cloaked in darkness, locked within the shell of each occupant’s mind.

These sovereigns can eviscerate them without blinking, but they won’t. Merry knows what this is. It’s a parley, a preliminary, the prelude to becoming enemies. They had invaded that poetic night on Stargazer Hill, but that had been a tactical attempt devised in advance. The carnival had been intended as a swift resolution to a single problem, whereas the Court won’t lower themselves to an expanded, long-term conflict devoid of terms.

All the same, Merry doubts they take her kindreds seriously. These rulers have ordained power, along with an entire realm of loyal deities at their behest.

Her stomach curdles. She doesn’t want to fight them, but she will choose to.

“This outcropping of defiance looks familiar,” the gossamer goddess observes. “Except half of the players are different, the other half sadly recognizable.”

The god with braids says to Anger, “Based on your surveillance of the former Love over the past years, we know you to be a nostalgic archer. However, this is taking the obsession a bit too far. What?” he asks, noting Anger’s stumped reaction. “You didn’t think we would keep an eye on your fetish? We may have lost Love to mortality, but it’s only been four years. Hardly any time to be sure she wouldn’t regain her memory, or her sight, by some trick of the stars or existential misstep. We weren’t about to leave that to chance.

“The stars keep infinite legends hidden. Of course we would periodically monitor her until we deemed it safe, until certain she would remain human. So yes, we’ve known about your activities—,” the ruler glances at Merry, “—until recently.”

Merry lifts her head. As if to prove them right, Anger threads his fingers with hers, unashamed and without repentance.

The Court members notice but hardly act nonplussed. “Notwithstanding your latest conquest, we’ve trailed Love right back to you,” the gossamer goddess supplies. “How else do you think we knew to come here?”

“I didn’t lure her to this city,” Anger defends.

“In a manner of speaking, you did. Malice has always been a nuisance, but it was you who shoved us toward this point of contention. Yet another face-off in which you’ve gone behind our regal backs. You haven’t learned from the last time we disciplined you, is that it? I wonder where rebellion will oblige us in the future. Who knows what other fossilized lore your little gang might excavate? Other provisions within the stars, perhaps?”

Malice and Wonder speak at the same time.

“Such as?” he drawls.

“Like what?” she blurts.

The archers swap irritated glances, but the Court members intervene. The braided god addresses Wonder. “You and Malice share a common interest for the Archives. Malice was exiled because he’d overstayed his welcome. He dug too deeply for fossils, meddling where he didn’t belong, searching for secrets he had no right to.”

“No right to,” Malice repeats dubiously.

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