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“This is crazy,” she insists. “This whole night is crazy, all the things we’ve been doing and saying. We’re in the middle of a war.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but war hasn’t begun yet. Our people have no clue we’re here, save for a few ambitious archers. For how long? Who knows? But the fight hasn’t begun, and something tells me it won’t in the next couple of days.”

“A year ago, we would have predicted it would take centuries for us to finish negotiating, before even resorting to battle. Look how fast everything is happening.”

“That depends on how long we think this has been brewing under the surface. It took the Court eons to create a Goddess of Love. And then that very goddess turned out to be a renegade who fell for a human, creating a domino effect that changed the course of our people. Why do you think that is?

“Perhaps the stars had this plan in mind. Perhaps this was always our destiny, and perhaps we’ve been preparing without knowing it. Perhaps we’ve been stewing without recognizing it. Otherwise, yes, it would have taken centuries for negotiations to flop. That we’re susceptible to such a rapid change of heart can’t be incidental.”

“Fine, but teaching you about pain isn’t as easy as teaching me pleasure.”

“I’ll do my utmost not to take offense to that,” Envy says dryly.

“It’s not a lesson plan that I can just map out,” Sorrow huffs.

He raises a single obsidian eyebrow.

Who in their right mind would make this sort of request? To ask the Goddess of Sorrow to show them misery, grief, melancholy, sadness? All the ingredients of her craft?

In the aftershock of his statement, pragmatism sets in, seeping through her veins. They could do this, become friends, show each other pleasure and pain without resorting to touching or embracing. Over the course of three days—two-and-a-half, if she counts the events since their arrival—it might supply them with a new kind of strength, a new kind of magic that would benefit this campaign.

It will also take their minds off that infernal legend. One that implies they have a remote chance of developing substantial feelings for each other.

This challenge won’t be about that. It’s practical, an efficient kind of training. In refuting the legend, they’ve been denying their band an advantage. Because Sorrow and Envy refuse to entertain romance, their band has taken tactical precautions by scouting an outpost, in anticipation of a scrimmage.

But if Sorrow and Envy can find an alternative strength, they will at least have more to contribute. If they’re unwilling to sacrifice or test their emotions, this might atone for that decision.

When Sorrow recaps her thoughts to Envy, he nods. Maybe he’d been thinking along the same lines, having considered the big picture, as well as himself. Just like a bona fide deity.

She should start slowly. Unfortunately, they don’t have that kind of time.

He’ll have to free fall, and crash, and break.

Like a waterfall. Like a rapid.

She’ll have to do it with him. This needs to be consensual, the lessons of pleasure and pain.

Around them, dragonflies commune amidst the foliage. One winged soul sneaks up on Sorrow and lands on her cropped finger. Settled upon her knuckle, its wings beat, as if in thought. Then without a farewell, it launches into the air and rejoins its allies, blending into that spiral of silver.

This time, she’s aware of the tweaks in her features, the smile that blooms. She turns to Envy, who’d witnessed the exchange, who’s waiting for her answer.

“Deal,” she says.

12

Envy

What is he doing? What is she doing? What aretheydoing?

They travel in silence from the dragonfly cove, back through the waterfall enclave. Sorrow picks around the hedges, dust motes landing in her unruly bun, blades of hair sticking out like straw. It’s such a mortal style to flout. It’s also inexplicably endearing, though grungy isn’t his forte.

By contrast, Sorrow’s plump, perky tush looks downright edible in those atrocious pants, mainly because he only glimpses a teasing hint of their swell. Damnation. She has the talent for turning subtle into salacious.

On second thought, pleasure is a-calling. Trotting through shrubs of burgundy and magenta, Envy appraises Sorrow while she walks ahead of him. Even as things stand between them, he can still look, because it would be a scandal not to. And—

“Cut that out,” she snaps. “I’m not blind.”

“Neither am I,” he drawls, still admiring.