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The monotony also spares him from remembering her lying, traitorous face.

Her smile. Her mouth, open in pleasure. Her chin trembling from the weight of her lie.

She’d betrayed him. She’d betrayed them all.

He hadn’t believed it. Even now, it’s incomprehensible, and part of him wants to deny her actions. He’d never imagined she would…but that goddess has always defied his expectations.

After everything they’d said and done. After those trips into the waterfall enclave. After that night on the boat. After that first kiss. After their escape.

After they made love.

That witch deluded him. In the end, the sex had been no different to her than their previous tumbles. Naturally, it had been a farce. What is three days compared with two centuries?

And why the Fates does it feel like his chest is caving in on itself?

Whatever Envy’s expression reveals, Anger reads it. His palm leaves Envy’s chest, only to press the glass arrow against it. “You’re not the only one Sorrow betrayed,” he says.

Envy snorts. “No, I’m just the only one she fucked.”

“She didn’t betray us willingly,” Wonder says.

The group swerves toward her, whereas she merely contemplates the remote hills. “Before Sorrow left, she had the look of someone carrying a secret pain.”

“In some way, they’ve crippled her,” Malice confirms. “So that she’d be able to castrate Envy and debilitate the rest of us.”

“Ask Guilt about that,” Envy says. “She’s around here somewhere. She might know what the deal was.”

“Oh, Envy,” Wonder berates. “You’re letting pride get in the way of sense.”

“Ah-ah, that’s not pride,” Andrew contests.

“It’s love,” Love and Merry say in unison.

They’re right. Envy confessed as much to Sorrow before she hitched a ride with the enemy. They’ve gotten over that bombshell, and if the Fate Court somehow pushed Sorrow into a corner, they don’t seem surprised by that.

Envy is the exception. His comrades must be wiser than he, or more rational since he’s the only one whose genitals had been invested in Sorrow. Unlike him, maybe they’ve had the breathing space to think logically.

Or unlike him, they’re too infected with sentimentality.

Well, who cares? Envy wants and doesn’t want to hear an explanation. He wants and doesn’t want a lot of things right now.

His friends watch him. They understand, and they don’t understand, because what he feels must be universal and distinct.

In any case, they each have a right to this feeling. Whatever Sorrow was to Envy, she was also their friend. They’ve all lost her.

The instant she left with their ruler, Envy tasted amongst this group the rancidness of contempt. He’d gagged on the bile of enmity and heard the clang of confusion. However, that visceral reaction has waned, leaving behind the gauze of despair, the gilded sheen of determination, and the citrus smell of loyalty.

Anger squeezes Envy’s shoulder. The band regards him with nods of camaraderie. Even Malice, who disarms and offers a nefarious wink.

Envy still has them, and they have him.

The clench eases up. He accepts the arrow with a twirl, nocking the glass stem to his longbow. Then he joins his friends at the rampart, where they line up and scan the perimeter, each of them outfitted in plates of armor. Invoked through magic, in the same manner as clothing, the protective sheathes mold to the body and appear supple to the touch.

Overhead, the stars and planets swell across the violet sky. A sudden wind bats Anger’s shoulder-length hair and tousles Malice’s golden waves. Andrew’s spectral, white layers rival snowfall as he tilts his head toward the nearest moon.

Love stands beside Andrew, bumping their shoulders tenderly.

Merry stations herself next to Anger.