Page 5

Gluttony

“I missed you.” “I came back as soon as I could.” “Will you always come back to me?” “Always.”

The orb sits heavy in my pocket when I return to the estate. Who the fuck is the stranger that gave it to me, and what the hell is it supposed to do? Why give me something and not explain?

Everyone is in the kitchen, and I drop the glowing orb on the table in the middle of the small room without a word. They all rear back from it. Deacon leaps from his chair to move behind it. Cowardice or smarts? A little of both. Smart to be afraid, but his first instinct should be to destroy the thing he’s afraid of, not move away from it.

“What the hell is that?” Lazarus’s lips curl in distaste. “It has the smell of Dark Fae all over it.”

“Where’s Wrath?” I ask instead of answering. Envy still sleeps—he’s sleeping a lot later these days, and even I’m worrying about it, especially after yesterday’s display and his lack of control over his magic. If he loses complete control over it, we’ll have a lot more to worry about. Wrath, however, should be here.

“He disappeared around the same time you did,” Lust drawls. He reaches behind himself and gathers Deacon closer to him, hand settling on his hip. Comforting him. Another useless emotion I have no time for. If Deacon is worried, he can soothe himself instead of relying on someone else to do it for him.

They let Wrath loose in the city? That spells trouble. Though I won’t mind if he levels a few buildings in his search. The subtle approach isn’t working, and it’s time for Lust to step aside and let us handle it.

“Care to share where you went?” Lust gestures at the orb. “And what that is?” Lazarus reaches forward, and Lust grasps his wrist, halting him. “Don’t touch it. Gluttony, an explanation.”

“I don’t know what it is.” I have zero fucking clue. The mystery stranger left before I could ask as if I’m expected to already know. I’m more interested in him than the orb. The orb belongs to me now, and I’ll figure it out. And the stranger? Who do they belong to?

“Where did you get it?” Deacon asks, peering around Lust’s arm.

“It was given to me.” It’s mine. If they were meant to have it, it would have been given to them. Showing it to them doesn’t make it a free-for-all.

“By whom?” Lazarus asks. “Did you find a Dark Fae? Where?”

The information belongs to me—what little of it I have—and part of me doesn’t want to share it. “I don’t know who they were.” The stranger isn’t Fae. They can’t hide their scent. Conor may have figured out a way to mask himself, but he’s not fully blooded. A weak, pathetic creature would find it easier to hide since there’s barely any power to mask. A true Dark Fae, with their mass of magic, would never be able to do that.

“You touched it. It’s safe?” Lust asks.

“Seems to be.” It could be a ticking time bomb, rigged to wait until they’re sure I’m back here, where we’re relaxed and at our most vulnerable. Conor’s bullshit organization found their way in here once. While we’ve bolstered the security, it may not mean anything. We don’t know what resources they have. Until we do, we can’t be sure of anything.

Lust plucks it up, twirling it in his palm. “It’s cold. Heavy. Definitely a Dark Fae object of some kind. Some stranger gave this to you? What did they look like?”

My fingers itch to snatch it from him, squirrel it away, so that no one else can even look at it. The stranger gave it to me. It’s mine .

“They didn’t show themselves. All they said was that this could help us find our brothers.” They’d said a hell of a lot more than that. Those things are for me, and I’m not sharing. None of it is relevant to this, and so it remains mine.

The strange words, the broken words, with a glimmer of something else beneath them. Whispered in my ear, all around me. For me alone. I know there’s more to the conversation than the words themselves. There’s no doubt the stranger will be back. I’ll be waiting for him.

Lazarus frowns at it. “How?”

An excellent question. The orb hasn’t done anything since I got it. Not when I touch it, not when I push my magic into it, or when I squeeze it with my full strength. Not even a crack to show for it. All I have are the words of a man who refused to come out of the shadows and a weird-as-fuck rainbow-colored specter in the form of a baby dragon that isn’t affected by my lightning. Neither of those give me a lot of confidence. There’s no explanation for why I chose to take it despite all that. A blind instinct driving me.

Deacon ducks his head to get a closer look. It lights up suddenly, a bright-white strand peeking out of it like growing grass. It wriggles as if searching for something. Deacon steps back in surprise, and the light disappears, going dormant.

“Well, that took on an entirely creepy turn,” Lazarus says, leaning back with a perfectly arched eyebrow. His dark suit jacket shifts as he moves. “Is it sentient?”

“No.” I don’t think. Maybe it is. Who gives a fuck? It’s an orb made of Dark Fae energy. They can all just calm the fuck down, acting like I brought some live bomb in here.

“It’s certainly responding to Deacon,” Lazarus remarks thoughtfully.

Lust hums in agreement. He strokes his chin and then says, “Deacon, come closer. Don’t worry, I won’t let it hurt you.”

“Yeah, that would be such a shame,” I mutter darkly. I won’t be mad if it’s a trick to kill him. Won’t even pretend to shed a tear for Lust’s sake. The less we have to do with the traitorous brothers, the better.

Lust sends me a look that I give right back. He gestures for Deacon. “If it is Dark, you may be the only one who can activate it.”

I have to shove a clenched fist into my pocket when Deacon approaches the orb again. It reaches for him properly now, tentacle strands lengthening and moving up his chest. My lips twist in a sneer, the urge for violence rising in me. I hate that it responds to him and not me.

I want it back. It’s mine. My gift. Not theirs. Not for them. Especially not for Deacon, who doesn’t belong here in the first place. How dare he think he can touch what doesn’t belong to him?

“Gluttony?” Lazarus asks, tilting his head. He’s watching me too closely, seeing too much.

“I’m fine,” I bite out, anger like a physical presence in my chest. The stranger must have known that Deacon’s the only one who can get the orb to work. “Let’s just get this over with. The sooner we find everyone, the sooner we can hunt Conor down and kill him.”

“We’re not killing him,” Deacon says, shooting me a glare.

“I’m not having this argument with you.” Deacon has no horse in this race. If he wants to fight both Wrath and me, he’s welcome to try. I’ll make him regret he ever stepped foot in these walls. This road will only end when Conor is six feet under, for real this time. I’ll make sure he doesn’t have a body left to resurrect in.

“Let’s focus on the orb right now.” Lust lays a hand on Deacon’s, stopping his tirade in its tracks. He knows when not to push me. “Here, hold it.”

Deacon tenses as Lust places the orb in his palm. It glows brighter, and strands like silk twine out and around him. I hate everything about it.

“And I thought I’d seen everything,” Lazarus says with a low whistle. He runs a finger over his bottom lip thoughtfully. “What is this? Have you seen it before?”

“It seems… familiar?” Lust admits. To me as well, in a way that sits on the edge of my tongue, not quite within reach. “I can’t pinpoint why. If it’s Dark Fae magic, then it’s possible we’ve seen it before.”

The Dark were our allies, and we once worked closely together, from the little that I can remember. It’s been so long that there are gaps in memory that fade with time.

“It’s…” Deacon frowns, brows drawing in. “Talking to me?”

“And what exactly does an orb talk about?” Lazarus asks with a derisive snort, somehow making the undignified sound sophisticated.

It better be something fucking good. He can figure it out and then give it back to me.

“Not words,” Deacon says, eyes narrowing as he studies the orb. “Just… reaching for me?”

“How is that talking to you? It’s like the blind leading the blind,” I say angrily. This is ridiculous. “It’s supposed to lead us somewhere. Can you make it do that?” We need answers, and we need them now, not in a week when he finally works out how to use it.

I’m not waiting that long. Deacon needs to return that orb as soon as he’s done with it.

Hurry up and give it back to me. I want to see it in my room, displayed like a trophy on my shelf. I’ll carve a wooden stand for it to sit perfectly in. If I examine it for long enough, can I make it come to life for me? If I study it enough, I’m sure I can. I’ll find a way.

“I don’t even know how I’m doing what I’m doing!” Deacon’s frustration leaks out of him, words sharp, with jagged edges.

“You better learn.” If he can’t get it to work, then he can hand it over.

“Let’s perhaps give him some time to look at it without everyone breathing down his neck?” Lust says, ever the mediator. “We’ll see what we can do. In the meantime, Lazarus, I need you to find Envy and let him know what’s going on. Gluttony, go get some rest. You look tired. Did you sleep last night?”

With arms folded over my chest defensively, I ask, “Are you trying to manage me, Lust?” in a dangerous tone.

“Just a suggestion.”

“If I want your suggestion, I’ll give it to you.” Shoving through the door, I stalk out into the hallway. Fury curls around my throat, moving down my chest like a heavy weight. Deacon hasn’t given my gift back. He’s keeping it, and I don’t like that. It doesn’t belong to him. It was given to me .

I don’t know why it’s bothering me. It’s a meaningless trinket that may not get us anywhere, because it’s being used by an idiot. And yet the irrational urge to go back and snatch it away and squirrel it where no one can find it overwhelms me enough that I turn around and take a step back toward the kitchen.

My movements halt, hands clenching. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I stalk off in the opposite direction, determined to get as far away as possible. I can control myself better than this.

It’s a dangerous artifact, given to me by who-the-fuck-knows what. It could be a trick, a trap, something meant to hurt us. After everything we’ve been through, and the number of assholes that have done nothing but betray us at every turn, blindly trusting is the last thing we should be doing. It’s what got us in this mess in the first place and hardly what’ll get us out of it.

The orb doesn’t mean anything, and I don’t need it.