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Together, they arm themselves to obstruct any additional strikes meant for Anger.

Nevertheless, all it takes is one.

Anger casts them a sideways glance—then he topples over.

Envy bellows. The sound catches Merry’s attention, which alerts her to an incoming attack. Her neon arrow cuts through the archers’ shot and blows the male off his haunches.

She beams at Envy, assuming his shriek had been a warning—but then her eyes slide toward her lover’s motionless form. “Anger!” she wails.

Her irises catch the offending agate arrow before it vanishes from his stomach. Recognition dawns as she spots the ruling goddess, whose arms visibly shake, the monarch’s features ashen from what she’s done.

Anger was once the Court’s most loyal and trusted archer.

Struggling to compose herself, the monarch flies off. Then something happens that Envy hadn’t thought possible.

Fury suffuses Merry’s features. Clear, bright fury.

The goddess tears ahead on her skateboard, bulldozing every opposing figure who gets in her path. Launching into the air, Merry spins and fires with each revolution, pitting the deities who try to stop her, turning them into pincushions.

She lands, then surges toward the ruler, her teeth gnashing as she executes a dexterous skateboard trick, using the stargazer as a ramp to vault back into the air. Rotating mid-flight, she hammers into the ruler with a neon arrow.

It punches into the female’s abdomen, blowing the monarch off the dragonfly. When she crashes into a wall and slides into a fern bush, several fighters gawk at the pastel-haired misfit who’d brought down a sovereign.

Merry pays them no heed. Landing, she wheels the final feet, dashes off the board, and hurls herself at Anger’s side.

Envy and Malice rush toward the havoc, falling on all fours next to Anger, while Merry uses her tulle skirt to staunch the blood. “Anger!” she cries, tears streaming down her face. “Anger, don’t! No, please don’t! Please!”

“Merry,” he coughs, blood drizzling from his mouth as he cups her cheeks. “Merry, shh.”

“Here,” Envy says, clattering from his armor, whisking off his shirt, and using the garment to press against Anger’s wound. Remembering what Sorrow once told him about tending to injuries, he instructs Merry to keep it pressed in a certain way.

“But we n-need to move h-him,” she weeps. “If s-someone—”

“Don’t worry,” Malice says in raspy tenor. “I’ve got your backs.”

“Malice,” Anger grates out. “Show them who they banished.”

All hell breaks loose across Malice’s delighted face. “Like I need your permission, mate.”

Anger chuckles weakly while Malice bounces off the ground and darts off. When a trinity of immortals besiege him, the demon god dances around them. He ducks repeatedly out of fist range. Each time he pops up, Malice changes expression—crossing his eyes, then sticking out his tongue, then grinning like a prankster, to the point where his adversaries get confused and end up boxing one another instead.

With a maddened laugh, Malice jumps over them and makes a beeline for any immortal bent on attacking Anger’s huddle.

Envy helps Merry prop Anger against a wall.

Anger’s bloody fingers grasp Envy’s shoulder. “Bring her back to us,” he heaves out, puffing though the pain.

Merry concurs. She nods, her skin streaked with dirt and tears. “Win her back.”

Almighty Fates. Why should Envy do that? What do these two—and the rest of this band—understand that he doesn’t?

But it’s no use lying to himself. No matter how much he tries extinguishing Sorrow from his mind, she remains at the forefront with every nock of his arrows, with every target, with every corner that he turns.

Yes, he’s been searching for her this whole time. No, he doesn’t know if she’s all right. And yes, it’s killing him.

“Curse you,” Envy sighs to Anger. “Curse you for looking so pretty while covered in blood. And curse you for taking advantage of Uncle Envy’s vulnerability.”

Anger’s levels him with a slanted grin. “Call me a selfish myth.”