Page 32

Chapter

Twenty

SLOTH

I hated being awake.

Everything about it was loud. The colors, the sounds, the chaos of too many thoughts all trying to happen at once.

It was exhausting, and not in the charming, dramatic sense people used when they said things like "I'm exhausted!

" after an hour of socializing. No, I meant real exhaustion.

The kind that wrapped around your bones and made every breath feel like a negotiation with gravity.

So, when Gluttony stormed out of the manor in one of his fussy moods, I knew today was going to be hell.

I hadn’t yet met or even seen this witch that had turned my brothers’ lives upside down...and that was just fine with me. I had enough people in my life already, thank you very much.

I settled deeper into the velvet armchair by the window, book in hand, blanket cocooned around me.

G would come home eventually and regale me with whatever drama had unfolded—maybe some tears, maybe another broken door. Either way, I could nap through the chaos.

Until the wards chirped.

Low danger. Small breach.

I groaned. Probably some mortal Jehovah’s Witness again. The new wards were supposed to redirect those types straight to Envy's doorstep.

Still, I stood. My limbs protested with every step, muscles cramping in rebellion. I shuffled barefoot across the marble floor, through the back doors, and into the garden. The ping had come from the outer perimeter.

And that’s when I heard it.

A sound that made my stomach twist in ways I didn’t like—a thin, wheezing cry.

I was moving before my brain caught up, sluggish but determined. I followed the sound through the woods, out where an old brick barn lay crumbling into the eons of time. It used to be a gatehouse, or something.

There was movement from inside, and a small sound, like a trapped animal.

The wards had indicated human presence.

“Hello?” I called out.

I slipped between the bricks and debris, wincing at the sharp scrape of stone against my elbow. And then I saw her.

A child.

A faerie child.

Tiny, crumpled beneath a broken wooden shelf. One wing bent at an angle that made my own spine ache in sympathy.

Something twinged in my chest.

My great-grandmother had been a faerie.

I shoved that aside. Focus. Faerie children were rare. Like, born-once-a-generation rare. They were guarded, hidden, practically sheltered underground by their people.

Which meant if this one was here …

Her parents were probably dead. Or worse.

“You okay?” I asked, crouching beside her.

She shook her head, eyes wide and wet. Purple—amethyst, actually. Her curls were streaked with dust, her skin streaked with blood. Her tiny mouth quivered as she tried to speak but couldn’t.

“Well, that sucks,” I muttered. “Let’s fix it.”

I reached for the shelf.

It burned.

Gods, it burned.

Old wood, soaked in magick, heavy with age and rot, groaned as I braced myself beneath it. My shoulders screamed. My back wailed. My everything protested. I was Sloth, for fuck’s sake—I wasn’t built for this.

But her wing twitched again.

And I kept lifting.

Because the world was waking up.

And—for once—so was I.

“I need you to scoot back,” I said through gritted teeth. “Just a bit, alright?”

She whimpered but nodded. Brave little thing. Her tiny foot caught on a hunk of masonry. She gasped, her body trembling.

Screw this.

I shoved harder. A crack split through the air as the shelf shifted. I jammed my shoulder beneath it and heaved, stars dancing behind my eyes.

She crawled free.

I dropped the shelf with a loud thud and collapsed beside her.

“I hate this,” I groaned. My arms felt like noodles. Burnt ones.

“You saved me,” she whispered.

“Unfortunately,” I muttered.

She crawled over to me, still shaking, and threw her arms around my middle like I was some kind of divine savior.

Hugs. Ugh.

But I let her stay. Even patted her on the back. Once.

“You’re safe now,” I told her, as awkwardly as humanly—or sinfully—as possible. “Sloth’s got you.”

She looked up at me, eyes wide. “Are you one of the heroes?”

I snorted. Loud. “Gods, no.”

“But you’re helping,” she insisted. “I’m Kiva.”

Kiva. The name hit something soft in my chest I didn’t like to think about.

“I guess...sometimes even lazy people get tired of watching everything fall apart,” I said.

I looked down at her, gazing up at me in adoration. It made me uncomfortable, and I searched for an immediate change in topic.

“How the fu–er, how did you end up here?” I asked.

She held her arms up to me, and I bent down and picked her up. She was dreadfully thin. Good thing G had just restocked the house on crisps and biscuits.

“The bad men had me. I didn’t like where they were. So I wished to be somewhere else,” she said, as if it were all perfectly logical.

Fae magick was powerful, yet unpredictable, especially a child fae in danger. We’d have to be very careful.

I took her back to the manor, her weight pressed against my side.

“Where are you parents?” I asked.

“The bad men,” she said solemnly, bright purple eyes widening again. I saw horror and pain reflected in them.

“Right,” I coughed. “Well, there are no bad men here. Just...irresponsible men.” I grinned at my own joke.

Her head tilted to the side, confused.

When we reached the backdoor, the sun was kissing the horizon, a red bruise across the sky.

“I’m brave,” Kiva stated seriously, out of nowhere. Her eyes scanned the house and the gardens excitedly.

“You’re a mess,” I replied. “But brave works too.”

I wanted so badly to do something stupid and simple–like play in the garden. But I needed facts, because G would demand them the moment he returned and found her.

“Were your parents killed by poachers?” I asked.

Her expression twisted, face dropping to the ground.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I muttered. “A living child would fetch a high price. A fae? Even higher.” My resolve hardened into steel. “You will be protected. Celebrated, even.”

Her head tilted up to me, her eyes shy with hope.

It was true; the world was broken. And sometimes, it needed someone even more broken to care.

I kept staring at the fae–Kiva. Something shifted inside me. Something old and slow and heavy. It wasn’t as good as being whole with all seven sins, but it was the beginning of something.

Kiva smiled at me, like maybe—maybe—she saw me now. Not the background noise.

Me.

Sloth.

And weirdly?

I didn’t hate it.