The scene exposes a multitude of phenomena, not the least of which is Envy’s cantankerous attitude, Sorrow’s efforts to actually tease, and the tension coiling from both.
Envy, not in the mood to flirt? Sorrow, wounded by the rejection?
This is the first time that Wonder has witnessed an entanglement between them. They’d become lust partners shortly before their group had first arrived in this city. Since then, the couple hasn’t denied each other once.
Perhaps it’s the stress. Their rebel class trains hard while also harvesting allies amidst the outcasts, those who oppose the Fate Court and support the empowerment of humanity. They’d begun hopeful, but it appears the strain of a potential battle with their supreme rulers has caught up to them.
Sorrow shuffles, the folds of her skirt grazing the hill before she recovers, because Sorrow knows how to recover from injuries. With a scoff, she flicks the back of her hand as if to say, Bah. Good riddance. She trounces off, stomping down the hill, her glossy hair gleaming beneath the stars.
A muscle ticks in Envy’s jaw, but he doesn’t stop her.
It could be their first official lust quarrel, though Wonder wouldn’t know. She’s hardly a virgin, but she’s never been involved in such an arrangement as theirs. She’s only been with one other person, and that had been an oversight—one she doesn’t plan on making again. When next she takes a lover, it will mean something.
Wonder addresses her companion’s rigid shoulder blades. “Oh, Envy. You know better.”
He belts out an ironic, humorless laugh. “Why don’t you stop dabbling in everyone’s affairs and deal with your own instead? Oh, wait. You would need an actual mate for that.”
He strides away, charging in the opposite direction from Sorrow. Neither of them opts to simply vanish, electing to walk it off instead.
Wonder flinches. Envy is behaving like a mongrel, but he’s right. She meddles in everyone’s relationships because she has no bond of her own.
Kinships, indeed. Friendships, certainly.
Something more? No.
She stands atop the summit, blinking at nothing, thinking everything. Her surroundings materialize as if she’d forgotten where she is. She orientates herself to the expanse of grass, the central oak tree that stands proud, and the two shimmering telescopes that crane their necks toward the constellations.
The heliotropes, ultramarines, and magentas of an amusement park surround the hill: the Carnival of Stars. It’s an urban spectacle of celestial-themed attractions, where ethereal rides laud the galaxy and all its majesty. It’s a beautiful place, on a beautiful night. It’s a splendor of bulbs, twinkling trees, and pathways lined with sparklers. Elated laughter and joyous shouts spring from the attractions and the mortals who frolic through the area.
Their class selected this bluff as a suitable training ground because it reminds them of home. Growing up in the Peaks, they used to practice on such an incline.
This one is called Stargazer Hill, and it rises from the earth at the nexus of the carnival, while the theme park glows at the very heart of the Celestial City. Beyond the park shines the magical metropolis, a panorama of historical buildings, radiant trees, and rooftop foliage. Since becoming exiles, she and her peers have made their residence here, a mortal landscape where the stars shine the brightest.
The book repository’s distant silhouette cuts through the inky sky, a smattering of stars flexing above the roof. Somewhere in that building are more books that Malice will hanker to read, more books that Wonder will yearn to explore, more books that lack the answers she seeks.
Actually, there may be a way to redeem herself, a means to atone for her uselessness of late. Although she’d tucked into that mythology title earlier, there are alternatives to study, as Malice had said. She could station herself in a cubicle and consult additional versions, scouring the retellings for whatever he has in mind.
Soon, midnight will come. Soon the carnival will close, the bulbs shutting like eyelids. Soon the library will shut its doors.
There’s no need to travel instantaneously. If there’s one thing she has, it’s plenty of time to get there.
The hours pass, dissolving into the firmament. By the time the city retires, the library is all hers.
The repository is a chasm, with six levels of corridors and labyrinthine stacks comprising the building. Though a historical edifice, it’s been modernized with three original stories above ground, three contemporary stories below.
Buried underneath all that is the vault.
Wonder toys with garlands of ivy as she wends her way to the second-floor mezzanine, then to the third. This quest would pass more quickly if she were acquainted with the fiction section, with its backlists and new releases. If this were a test of her nonfiction prowess, she would be victorious.
Her saving grace is that the romance quarter sprouts with an abundance of blushing covers and swooning fonts about fantasy royals, highlanders, and billionaires. The cursive words Duke and Scoundrel, Cocky and Cruel, Sword and Series, loop across the spines. Some of the options intrigue her, the dust-jacket designs ranging from seductive to fierce.
Her fingers pause on one of the titles. This isn’t the time to curl up and crack open a slow-burn tale.
She scans the paperbacks, the carousels organized by author rather than genre. But she disregards that once she locates a special mythology display based on librarian recommendations. The covers are darker, with a lot more lightning, old world architecture, and imperial-looking characters, though the amount of bare muscles and puckered lips is the same as everywhere else.
Her feet stall at the sight of three books pressed together like shoulders. The first one suggests a retelling of Eros. The second, Icarus.
The third, Hades and Persephone.
The library has divided these recommendations based on corresponding myth. Yet this trio is out of order, mishmashed together.
Wonder plucks the third title from the shelf. With a less lavish cover, its black façade displays shadowed profiles, the title interlaced with wildflowers and pomegranates. The book’s plastic crackles when she opens it, the pages stained with coffee. She turns to the prologue—and her hand freezes at the sound of a toxic voice.
A voice that shouldn’t be here, that cannot be here.
Because that voice should be locked in the vault.
“My, my,” Malice drawls. “Look who got curious.”
3
She barely has time to turn around before he’s on her. In a flash, Wonder’s back slams into the bookshelves. The titles quake. An avalanche of fiction tumbles and hits the floor, while the hardcover slips from her fingers and joins the casualties.
The impact of Malice sucks the air from Wonder’s lungs, his forearm jabbing into her throat. His solid body flattens against hers, the muscles beneath his clothes flexing. Those eyes—saturated tones of gray in his face—pierce through her, the makings of a vendetta conspiring to brighten his irises. The chaos of his breath buffets her neck, a thick current making contact with her pulse point.
Pinned together like this, his form inundates hers. And up close, and for an instant, she mourns that boy, wants him to be that boy.
But despite having the same face, he doesn’t possess the same soul and never will. Bereavement morphs into resentment, because this moment is nothing to lament about.