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Another quirk. “Tell us how you got here.”

“Magic.”

“I’m afraid your legendary sarcasm will do you no favors.”

“Where are your accomplices?” the porcelain goddess inquires from her armchair perch. “Who is included in the party?”

Ugh. “I have a cap on how many questions I can answer before it depresses me,” Sorrow replies. “Which one do you want me to answer?”

The butterfly goddess sighs. She nods, and the pair of thieving archers who’d taken Love’s weapons disperse with a series of genuflections.

“Our subjects have provided us with enlightening information. It seems that not only has your radical band trespassed into the Peaks, but some of you lost your archery during a chase into the rapids. We’re also told that one of the weapons, which our subjects recovered from the water, is forged of iron.” The butterfly goddess hitches a brow. “Yet it is not the iron of Anger.”

It’s a long story, but when Love and Andrew bonded, Love had originally lost her powers, and the rulers had confiscated her weapons. Sure enough, they hadn’t known that Love rejoined their band of rebels, much less that Andrew lost his mortality and became part of this crusade, too.

A lot has happened since then. A lot has been rectified.

Presumably, these rulers are beginning to realize this. Because of everything that’s happened after Love’s story, and Anger’s story, and Wonder’s story, it has amounted to a number of their subjects abandoning the Peaks, in order to ally with Sorrow and her friends.

Naturally, the Court is aware of that part. They just hadn’t been aware of a few plot holes.

Nevertheless, the one question they don’t need to ask iswhySorrow and her clan are here. The reason is obvious. One can’t have a battle without a battleground.

“So be it,” the hawkish god grumbles. “If you refuse to confirm Love’s presence among your clique, then we shall come full circle to the first question. How did you get here?”

A gleam of recognition alights the butterfly ruler’s face. “Wonder and Malice.”

Bull’s eye. As Sorrow’s group had predicted, the Fate Court had believed the conflict would take place somewhere on mortal ground, since it’s impossible for outcast deities to cross boundaries.

That is, unless they have the means to chip through barriers. To be specific, unless they have Asterra Flora.

As to their plans once entering this land, well, the Court will have to crack open Sorrow’s skull like a piñata before they get anything out of her. Either that, or torture her with electro pop.

She spits as much, embellishing with Grade A obscenities and an abridged version of the facts. One, Malice and Wonder are as smart as fuck. How many times will it take before they prove that? They uncovered all the legends that resurrected Love and Anger’s powers, not to mention united them with Andrew and Merry.

That’s what it boils down to, because love is a strength these rulers don’t comprehend. Even if Sorrow doesn’t understand it herself, she deduces this much.

Two, even if she knew where her friends were, she wouldn’t tell.

Three, they can place bets on who’s included in the party. These sovereigns are ignorant, but not that ignorant.

Four, screw them.

Screw them for disposing of Sorrow and her classmates like trash when their beliefs turned out to be different. Screw them for threatening Andrew. Screw them casting off Merry when she was born, just because she didn’t fit the immortal notion of perfection. Screw them for nearly killing Malice.

Screw them for inspiring Sorrow and then disillusioning her. Screw them for dismissing her. Screw them for breaking her heart.

The butterfly ruler winces, as if she’s a mind reader. Maybe the hurt is mutual, because none of these supreme beings appear haughty or indifferent.

At the moment, they seem worn. In their eyes, they’ve been just as betrayed.

“All of this effort,” the god with winged brows says. “Lives compromised, history and destiny disregarded. All of this for mortals.”

Ah. That’s where the ignorance begins.

“All of this forallof us,” Sorrow maintains. “Fate doesn’t have to mean the control of mortal will. We can find a balance between chance and destiny, a new life cycle, and we might be better for it.”

They twitch, struggling to perceive her meaning. Pity scrapes at her throat. Their puzzlement reminds her that it’s always been this way. It’s all they know.