Page 103 of Touch

Lastly, her wings. They had appeared even when she’d become human, because she hadn’t reached that stage yet, the moment when they would vanish.

Envy swaggers to a tree trunk and leans against it while twirling a glass arrow. “Apologies for the scare with your lover. The Fate Court thought he was still toxic to us. They had to act.”

“I-I couldn’t let them find out I trespassed in The Archives, found the scroll, and encouraged you. I didn’t know how they would react,” Wonder confesses. “I’d hoped you would realize what was happening and announce the change. I trusted The Court wouldn’t really shoot. Not with you blocking Andrew. I didn’t expect things to turn out as they did, but I couldn’t move until the last moment.”

Love’s resentment ebbs. She cannot—will not—blame Wonder for fearing more torture. Indeed despite that ever-present threat, Wonder had been an ally from the beginning, helping Love when no other deity would, supplying her with sacred information, and rooting for Love to succeed.

As for Envy, Sorrow, and Anger, they did help in the end. Selflessly, they had put their lives at risk, giving little thought to their own personal gains.

Wonder explains how she’d rushed to tell Envy and Sorrow everything before their appearance in the storm: the scroll and its contents, as well as Wonder’s newfound suspicion that Love had become human, thus rendering Andrew harmless. So when Wonder had wordlessly begged their crew to stop The Court, bloodshed had ensued, archers and rulers turning on one another for the first time in millennia.

Anger had been out of the loop about Love’s transformation. Wonder hadn’t had the chance to inform him because he’d been in the woods, monitoring Love’s actions.

“I revealed the truth to him minutes ago,” Wonder supplies.

“Once The Court left,” Anger finishes.

Apparently, Love’s aim had intercepted their ruler’s arrow, hurling the god’s archery off course a hair’s width fromLove’s chest. A death shot that had been meant for Andrew. The explosion of light from the god’s arrow had blasted everyone to the ground, knocking them unconscious. But once the deities had regained their senses, Wonder exhibited Love’s wounded hand and the bloody arrow. Although it could have been a mere injury, Wonder feigned ignorance and encouraged the rulers to consider all they’d learned from The Archives. She inquired about any unique circumstances by which Love’s weapon can lose its power. The Court had speculated and appealed to The Stars, who affirmed Love’s mortality.

Wonder flinches in remorse. “They think you discovered the scroll on your own.”

Well, let them believe it. Let the archers safeguard the truth, lift it from Wonder’s shoulders, and splatter it across Love’s legacy. It’s not farfetched considering her mischievous ways and fetish for affection.

“Elite crew of The Dark Fates no longer,” Envy says with petulance.

Worry floods Love’s voice. “Elaborate, please.”

Sorrow clutches her chest and does a remarkable impersonation of the Goddess of Excitement. “Oh, my Stars! Haven’t you heard?”

What Love hasn’t heard is that every soul in The Dark Fates knows what happened. Yet amid the uproar about the scroll, how an unsung mortal nearly vanquished them, and that Love prevented it along with this crew—and not in the way anyone would have guessed—her people’s beliefs remain unchanged. To feel love isn’t in their nature. They consider Love the exception, as well as a deserter. She has bonded with a mortal and abandoned her people for a so-called lowly existence.

Their crew has become the laughingstock of The Dark Fates, which has turned out to be punishment enough, in lieu oftorture for their mutiny. Few things are worse for a deity than ridicule and rejection.

The Guides are shamed. Envy and Sorrow are publicly pitied for being saddled with degenerate peers. Wonder’s own past with a human has been resurrected. And their crew has been reduced by not one, but two.

Anger has been banished from The Dark Fates.

Love hisses. Her head whips toward the god, who looks as if her distress affronts him. “I hit a nerve, so to speak.” He cracks a rare but derisive grin. “It appears, I’m hardly rebel material.”

The rage god could not be more wrong. He’d confessed to The Court about voluntarily withholding intel regarding Love. He’d taken matters into his own hands and concealed news of her bond with Andrew, suspecting The Court would venture here to see it for themselves, only to discover her playing with fire and delaying the match.

Shielding Love has cost Anger. As the leader, he will pay the greatest price among the remaining archers. He will be living in solitude, wandering the human realm without purpose, neither of this world, nor of The Dark Fates.

Love fights to keep her knees from buckling. None of them deserve this.

“It’s my fault,” she whispers.

“You are certainly human, already growing a conscience,” Envy drawls, his pompous grin restored. “There’s no need to fret, pretty one. However blemished you’ve made us look, we have plenty of time to get over it.”

“And it was my pleasure,” Wonder announces, folding her scarred hands in front of her. “However, I shall come back to haunt you, if you let our efforts go to waste.”

Love promises she won’t, then glimpses the rage god. “Where will you go?”

Anger tosses her a patronizing sneer. “I shall live. Longer than you.”

If The Court hadn’t ordered Anger to report on Love in the first place, he might not have been there to summon the rulers, and they wouldn’t have tried to decimate Andrew. Not that Andrew had proven an easy target, for he’d faced off against the enemies with his own brand of strength.

Nonetheless, if Anger hadn’t been there, Love and Andrew might have perished in the storm.

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