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“In other words, fluid like water. We’re real like humans, like bona fide deities. Meaning, neither of us should have power over the other. Meaning, I’m here because I want to be. I’m fighting with our class because I believe in what we’re doing, even if that entails redefining my purpose.”

“Which would be?” she asks.

“To begin, I’d have to declare what it means to be a deity in the first place,” he muses. “What does it mean to be a god or goddess?”

“Maybe it’s a blessing.” Sorrow halts, her hair in disarray around her face. “The clincher is, we’ve misinterpreted what that blessing entails. Maybe it’s about embodying magic instead of forcing it on others? I don’t know, maybe we need to wield that blessing from a different angle. Then maybe we need to trust it, have a little more faith in it.”

That option doesn’t sound half bad, if ambiguous. But then, he’s beginning to grasp that life itself is ambiguous.

They reach a second threshold at the opposite end of the enclosure. Indicating a tapered lane that stretches from the cavern, he takes her hand and leads her through.

Sorrow gasps. Outside, misted cascades fall into clusters of pools and baths, with burgundy-capped trees rooted beneath the depths and sprouting from the surfaces. Paths web through the enclave, arching like bridges over the waters or vanishing around bends.

“It’s a waterfall enclave,” Envy supplies, feeling strangely nervous.

Sorrow gawks at the sight. “I’ve never been here.”

He guides her along the walkways, knitting their fingers together but uncertain why it’s necessary. At a cul-de-sac, he releases her and reclines against a tall rock embroidered in magenta vines. “The ancient celestials used to say if you make love in these waters, you’ll be changed forever. Wanna try?”

She shoves his shoulder. “You creep. Stop ruining this.”

“Does that mean you like what you see?”

“Maybe. I’m still working on my so-called pleasures, remember?”

“Need more help with that?”

“You wish—”

She yelps when his arm snakes around her waist and tugs her against him. Their chests collide, her breasts mashing into his naked torso. “That wish came true once,” he speaks into her ear, relishing the way her muscles tense and her eyelids flutter.

He remembers this, how their bodies fit. Dammit, he remembers it well.

Sorrow pulls back and meets his gaze with a wry aspect of her own, her mouth slanting as if unimpressed. “Fucking me wasn’t a wish, Envy. It was a lack of options.”

Waterfalls crash and fog around them. Envy’s nostrils flare. Those oversized pajamas are becoming more appealing by the second, because he knows what’s underneath them.

Abruptly, he lets her go. “As we were, back to the…Where were we?”

“I-I’m not sure,” she stutters. “The meaning behind us? And humans?”

“Ah, right. To answer your earlier question, I like humans. I like them even more after watching them for this long. I like their unapologetic passions and how they feel a multitude of beautiful things simultaneously, despite their short lifespan. I like the notion of families and how much they cherish that custom.”

“It would be nice to have a family.” Sorrow hops onto a neighboring rock, letting her limbs swing over the side. “Or it seems like it would be nice.”

“It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” Envy agrees, propping his shoulder against the rock and twisting toward her. “To be linked to someone? To build a relationship with them? To thread your life with theirs, in spite of your differences? Not every human dedicates his or herself to that, and sometimes I don’t blame them. But for so many, they create such unified harmony. It’s the sort of bond that I can’t imagine. So much compromise, tradition, emotional turmoil, and emotional bliss. So much comfort and collision. So much pain and joy. So much…”

“The word for it is love,” Sorrow says.

“That’s one sensation only our band can confirm.”

They fall silent. An elephant stomps into the scene, crashing its chunky backside across the fronds and settling its wide derriere between them. The reason they can’t confirm it is the reason they’re no longer lust partners. It’s because of this legend their peers insist on dumping in Envy and Sorrow’s laps, believing if they commit to something beyond fornication, something deeper and supposedly profound, something that only humans are supposed to feel—with the exception of their friends—then their band will have better odds of winning this war, perhaps preventing it altogether.

Not a chance. They might be having a conversation of actual substance, but that’s a far cry from romance.

Love and Andrew fell in love in ten days, Anger and Merry in twenty-one days, Wonder and Malice in thirty days.

For a deity? That’s no time at all.