Page 14 of Tempt

Woefully, the appraisal is correct. Among the males, Andrew is boyishly pretty, while Anger is a handsome tempest, and Envy is a spicy rogue.

By contrast, Malice is…provocative.

Whenever he opens his dirty mouth, someplace in the universes a riddle is published, dynamite explodes, and hymens break. To consolidate his delinquency, the stars have anointed him with wily features—an impish countenance and blond waves piled atop his head like a farce. The tyrant possesses a deceitful sort of attractiveness, the kind that makes one second-guess every truth in existence.

Wonder drags her palm across the grass, which reminds her that she’s yet to locate her corsage. Perhaps she should hike to Stargazer Hill and search. Hadn’t she lost it while training?

On second thought, she doesn’t recall wearing the corsage during practice.

Mentally, she retraces her steps, going back in time, before the training session, before she’d brought their captive pomegranates for breakfast, before…

Her fingers seize the blades of grass, her starburst scars tensing. She had been wearing the corsage when she’d thrust a stopper into his bad dream. The blossoms had been tethered around her wrist as she’d reached out to touch his hair, unaware that he’d been awake.

The deviant must have divested her of the corsage by some sleight of hand.

The significance floods her. Wildflowers and pomegranates, an immaterial combination in this realm, a notable one in another.

When one grinds a petal and seed rooted from the Peak’s soil, the sequence fuses and yields a liquid that opens barriers.

It’s called Asterra Flora.

Although the Fate Court had buried this information, Wonder is the only one who knows about it. She and one more soul, it seems.

Someplace in the vault, Malice must possess a pomegranate originating from the Peaks. That accounts for the tart scent of fruit down there. And if he’d pinched the spray of blooms gathered from her home, and if he’d combined the two, the result would dismantle blockades.

Hindrances like star-dusted bars within a vault.

That’s how he’d escaped. And if he had successfully fled once, he’d do it again.

And oh, he wants her to know this.

I’d rather prolong the inevitable and then take something that matters to you. Something precious.

An alarming notion squats in Wonder’s gut. If he hasn’t simply used the Asterra Flora to escape for a second time, then he’s waiting for a more valuable commodity…an asset that only she can provide in exchange.

An idea of what it is percolates, because he knows what this discovery means to her. He knows why she’ll want the mixture.

Inwardly, she festers until her class leaves the carnival. Then she festers all day until midnight. Then she festers her way into the vault, where he reclines in the rocking chair, his ankles and hands bound in chains of starlight, his head angled nonchalantly toward her.

“Where is it?” Wonder demands.

“Where’s what?” Malice inquires, guileless.

She nocks a quartz arrow and targets his chest. “I won’t ask again.”

“Yes, you will. You’ll ask three more times. No mates for backup?”

“Where is it?!”

“By all means, go treasure hunting. You won’t find it.”

True. She and her peers may comb this vault, then this entire library, but they won’t find a concoction of petals and pomegranate seeds. Malice has spent a century and a half dwelling in this repository, becoming fluent with every nook and cranny. That means he has stashed the brew someplace inaccessible.

He must have done so before stalking Wonder in the library. He’d hidden the pomegranate and corsage as a precaution. A bargaining chip for later.

For now.

“What do you want?” she demands.

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