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Love hops onto Andrew’s back and plants her lips all over his laughing profile.

Anger twirls Merry in a circle while she flings her head to the stars.

Wonder floats on her back until Malice snatches her into a fervent kiss.

Waist-deep and dripping, Envy sidles up to Sorrow. Taking her hand, he presses her palm to his beating chest. “Go deep.”

Sorrow places his own hand against her heart. “Go deeper.”

One lingering kiss later, they join their friends. Beneath a glistening sky, the archers shout with joy. They dive and swim and celebrate. And they love.

And now they know what that feels like.

Epilogue

Faith

He watches them. Spreading the leaves like a curtain, he peeks though the foliage and spies on the eight archers frolicking in the water.

What a silly, misfit bunch!

All that fighting and arguing and rebelling. All those captures and escapes. All those flying arrows.

He would have done it differently. Wouldn’t he?

The band chortles and capers in the lake. With a shake of his head, Faith cannot decide whether to giggle or purse his lips at the display. The archers have gone mad. They dash about, spraying water everywhere, some bare-bottomed, some with their clothing drenched.

They hug and kiss their soul mates. And at one point, they float on their backs and stare at the sky.

Hmm. Is this what fate looks like? Is this what free will looks like?

Faith cocks his head. Although he fancies his clover arrows, the thought of blessing an emotion rather than forcing it…well, it’s sort of thrilling. Also, it sounds godlier. He likes that.

Maybe he should thank this silly group.

Maybe he likes them a little. Okay, maybe a lot.

Maybe he’s looking forward to seeing them often, whenever their paths cross in the Peaks. And maybe it’s fun to see them like this, wild and happy.

When the eight archers depart together, Faith creeps out from behind the shrubbery and trots to the water’s edge. His longbow and quiver clatter against his back. Perching on the bank, he deposits the archery on the floral grass and dips his legs into the lake, which reflects the summit’s stargazer.

But where did the constellations go?

They were up there a moment ago, before the archers left.

With a crinkled brow, he cranes his head from the lake’s surface and inspects the canopy. Suddenly, it’s the strangest sky he’s ever seen, not quite nighttime any longer, not quite daybreak yet. Then again, he’s never been out at this hour, on the cusp of darkness and lightness, between violet and blue.

He’s not allowed. In fact, his Guide would flay him for sneaking out. And oh, goody. That means he’s breaking another rule!

Settling more comfortably, he returns to his reflection in the water. The burnished skin. The wide, fluttering, lilac eyes. The hooded cloak covering his slender shoulders. Nothing he hasn’t seen before, yet the firmament is so big and endless behind him, so that he resembles a tiny star that blinks in the sky.

There’s a star that blinks in the sky…

Right! Isn’t that how he began? His Guide had once told Faith the story of his birth. How funny that he remembers now.

Faith swings his head this way and that, surveying his appearance anew. His eyelashes fan out with a painted midnight sheen like ink. The ornamentation reminds him of that purple-haired goddess, who’d decorated herself with silver stars beneath her eyes, emitting specks of light. He’d wager she did that for herself. She’s raw and doesn’t try to impress others, and he fancies that about her.

That long-haired god is fairly likable, too. The one who bestowed Faith with a chore.