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Sorrow’s elation falters. A glimmer of sadness flickers in her pupils, there and gone before anyone can remark.

“Like I said, it’s transactional,” she deflects.

“We’ve never even kissed. What?” the goddess asks when everyone gapes at her.

“Kissing isn’t essential to get the job done; that’s what cocks and pussies are for.

It’s hard and fast without the residue of sap.

Though obviously, he’s grown bored. And what did I expect?

He can do whatever, and whomever, he wants. I don’t care.”

A sharp nod from Love. “You tell him.”

“Brava,” Merry cheers.

“So don’t worry,” Sorrow assures Wonder. “Envy’s just tossing judgements like he tosses his prick. Impulsively and stupidly.”

“I don’t love Malice,” Wonder asserts.

No, she doesn’t. She loves a person of whom he’s merely a celestial forgery.

If she closes her eyes, she’ll see that human astride a black stallion, riding across a meadow. He had a name. It’s a moniker stamped onto her heart, a name she hasn’t permitted herself to say aloud in millennia.

Not since she lost him. Not since she destroyed him.

Love stares at the firmament beyond the branches. “We worry. That is all.”

“But we’re with you,” Merry says, slipping her fingers from Love’s hair and reaching out to clasp Wonder’s hands. “Always.”

Sorrow windmills her translucent arrow. “We’ve got to admit.

For a nemesis, our prisoner is one steamy fucker.

His psychotic beauty puts to shame any thriving god in The Dark Fates, and don’t lie.

We’ve all been subjected to his sleazy mouth.

If it wasn’t a tool for bullying, it’d be a turn on.

The heckler’s salacious vocabulary would be fodder for every deity who’s had their fill of Envy.

And just imagine what that tongue could do to a willing clit. ”

Wonder doesn’t care to fetishize what Malice’s tongue is capable of. Nor is she fond of any other female here fantasizing about him. The thought should not set her teeth on edge, yet it does.

But tragically, the appraisal is true. Among the males, Andrew is beautiful, Anger is handsome, and Envy is sexy. All of them, humans would call hot.

By contrast, Malice is provocative. Whenever he opens his dirty mouth, someplace in the universe an indecent riddle is published and hymens break.

To consolidate his delinquency, The Stars have anointed him with the features of a rockstar, a devilish gleam juxtaposing with unkempt blond waves and angelic bone structure.

The tyrant possesses a deceitful sort of attractiveness, the kind that makes his targets second-guess every truth in existence.

Wonder’s eyes flutter shut, her mind segueing into meditation. By the time she resurfaces, the three goddesses have dispersed. They must have thought to give her privacy.

Alone, Wonder’s hand drifts to her wrist, but the corsage still isn’t there. Come to think of it, she’s yet to locate the bracelet of flowers. Perhaps she should hike to Stargazer Hill, in case she lost it during training.

Or no. Actually, she doesn’t recall wearing the corsage during practice. Mentally, she retraces her steps, going back in time to before the training session, before she brought their captive pomegranates for breakfast, and before…

Her fingers dig into the blades of grass, her floral scars tensing.

She had been wearing the corsage when she thrust a stopper into Malice’s bad dream.

The blossoms had been tethered around her wrist as she’d reached out to touch his hair, unaware that he was awake.

In which case, the demon must have divested her of the corsage by some sleight of hand.

Narrowing her eyes up at the branches, the dangling pomegranates bring another thought into a stark relief. She recalls leaving his crypt and passing through this quad, noticing something odd about the way roaming mortals had regarded the tree. In fact, it’s the same way they’ve always regarded it.

None of them go near this tree. None of the patrons admire its beauty. None question why it’s fruiting out of season.

Instead, the mortals disregard this botanical splendor. As if it doesn’t exist.

Wonder launches upright and sets her palm against the trunk’s smooth grey bark. Humans dismiss this tree because they cannot see it.

“It’s immortal,” she gusts out.

This shouldn’t be plausible. In the Celestial City, immortal layers are visible to all deities, not hiding in plain sight. But then, Wonder’s obsession with flora steps in to rationalize. This lovely specimen was planted in a human quad, so the tree must have adapted, blended in, as nature does.

A theory trickles into her mind. Although rooted here, that does not mean this tree was conjured in the mortal realm. It could have been derived from a seed originating in The Dark Fates.

Another realization floods Wonder’s psyche.

Wildflowers and pomegranates. They’re an immaterial combination in this realm, yet a notable one in another.

One form of rare dark magic that breaches the veil between worlds requires two components of nature.

By grinding a petal and seed from their homeland, the elements fuse, producing a liquid that opens barriers.

The result is called Asterra Flora.

Although The Fate Court buried this information at some point, Wonder unearthed the details prior to her banishment, during one of her research sessions back home. By extension, the members of her crew are the only ones who know about Asterra Flora.

Them. And one more soul, it seems.

That’s how Malice escaped. He must have used a pomegranate seed from the one she gave him at breakfast, then combined it with a petal from the corsage he stole.

If both elements come from their world, that’s all it takes. Shackles be damned, Malice could have achieved the mixture by simply rubbing the ingredients together between his fingers. The result would have dismantled not only the restraints, but also the vault’s stardusted bars.

If Malice successfully fled once, he has the means to do it again. And he wants her to know this.

On the other hand, I’d rather play for a while, prolong the inevitable, and then take something precious that matters to you.

Malice hasn’t used the Asterra Flora for a second time because he’s waiting for a more valuable commodity. An asset only she can provide.

Rage courses through Wonder’s veins. She surges to her bare feet, leaves cracking beneath her soles as she marches inside.