Page 62 of Tempt

Wonder has read many words in her lifetime.Asylumis one of them.

His possessions—including the letters—burn in a pile, smoke puffing from the nexus. They hustle him into a barred wagon while a councilman bolts the library doors.

Wonder begs for them to stop, stop, stop.

“Stop!” she wails, rushing forward. “Release him!”

But before she can rip the lock from the wagon’s hinge and free the young man, a pair of mighty hands fasten on to her shoulders and haul her backward.

She fights, even though these aren’t the hands of a classmate or Harmony. No, these are the hands of a celestial sovereign.

***

Her floundering of late has given her away.

It has caught her peers’ attention. And it has caught her Guide’s attention. And although they haven’t reported a thing, their concern hasn’t gone unnoticed by others far more powerful.

While Wonder was busy defying regulation, the Fate Court had ordered a search of her home. That’s how they’d found the mortal ink and paper.

Harmony had discovered it first and ordered Wonder to trash the evidence. But Wonder hadn’t, even though she’d promised to, and the mentor had believed her.

Wonder confesses everything once they threaten to punish her classmates as well as herself. To that end, the rulers command her peers to carry out the torture, to strap Wonder down and slash those offensive, obstinate hands. In front of the congregation of deities, she struggles against the binds while a blade slices through her skin, blood blooming like petals, as red as pomegranates.

She makes out the shapes of starbursts, a preview of how the scars will look. Is this why she’d chosen quartz for her archery? Because it shall heal her hands later?

The whole time, her friends wear tormented expressions, living vicariously through this introduction to physical pain. They maim her hands, each movement forced. It stings, and it throbs, and she shrieks.

Please, no more. Please, it hurts.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!

Tears pierce her temples and seep into her hairline. She imagines the young man, the beloved librarian who owns her heart, the one who will never know her the way she knows him.

Where is he? What are those physicians doing to him?

Her friend, Love, cannot take it anymore and flings herself in front of Wonder, blocking the swing of Envy’s knife. For an instant, all four classmates appear relieved by the interruption. But then Anger reluctantly drags Love out of the room while she bucks and screams, the rage god preventing her protest from getting the rest of them into trouble.

At the behest of a Court member, it continues.

Wonder’s Guide watches with a trembling chin, periodically glancing at her superiors with glints of fury. Then Harmony meets Wonder’s eyes and holds the gaze, schooling Wonder to breathe, to empty her mind like they’ve practiced.

She can do this. She will survive.

But will that boy?

***

Anger pounds on her door in the middle of the night. Blearily, Wonder answers and barely has time to process as his mouth crashes onto hers, stealing her breath in a ferocious kiss.

She knows why. Despite delirium, she knows how Anger looks at Love, and how the goddess doesn’t look at him.

Wonder knows this unrequited agony. She’s attuned to this heartache, this loneliness. So on a desperate moan, she spreads her lips for Anger, letting him ply her with his tongue. She kisses him back, and it feels good, and it feels comforting.

In her mind’s eye, she envisions blond curls, blushing cheeks, and ashen irises. A humming tenor and filed fingernails turning a page.

Picturing those wiry lips, she surrenders. Together, they stumble inside her house and slam the door shut.

The next morning, she awakens next to Anger, who rests on his side. They stare at one another until her mouth wobbles, and her eyes blur. The archer’s own guilt reflects back at her as he smears the first tear with his thumb.

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