Cupid’s Match

The courtroom is completely silent.

Cal said that the Myths would arrive as soon as the trial started. Where are they?

I twist against my bindings to scan the vast room. Crystal’s face has drained of color, but Cupid wears a defiant smile, his gaze never leaving his mother’s face. She stares at him for a moment, her doll-like eyes unblinking, before looking past us to the rows of matchmaking agents sitting behind.

“We are here today to witness the trial of Cupid, my son; Crystal, the traitor; and Lila”—she slides her gaze back to me, her full red lips contorting into a grin—“the Match.”

As her childish voice echoes around the chamber, the cupids begin to stamp their feet against the ground—quietly at first, but then with increasing vigor. I feel a chill creep down my spine.

When the noise has faded, Venus picks up a white myrtle from the high desk in front of her. “Should they be found guilty,” she says, violently plucking off the flower’s petals, “they will be punished by death.”

She opens her hand and the flower stem falls to the ground.

“Charles, read out the charges.”

The redheaded PA scuttles forward and stands by her side. In his hand he clutches an electronic tablet. I notice a slight tremble in his hands.

“Cupid. Charged with breaking the company policy.”

The Italian Arrow with the elaborate bow turns toward Cupid and points his weapon. He is clearly to be our executioner.

“Lila,” says Charles, and my heart jumps into my throat as the executioner turns his bow toward me. “Charged with being the Match.”

“Hardly her fault,” says Cupid, “but rationality was never your strong suit, was it, Mother?”

Outrage flickers across Venus’s face. “SOMEONE DEAL WITH THIS INSOLENCE. CAL?”

A red-tipped arrow sinks into Cupid’s shoulder and he cries out. I twist against the post, the bindings pinching my skin, as his cries fill the air. Cal’s expression is blank. A flicker of anger ignites in my heart, but I snuff it out. Venus has to think he’s still on her side.

Venus sighs, as though in relief, and she turns to look at Charles. “Well? Carry on.”

Charles coughs nervously as Cupid’s cries turn to soft grunts. His face is pale and clammy, but the pain seems to have lessened. He is back to staring at Venus, a forced smile on his face.

“Crystal. Charged with conspiring against Venus and the Matchmaking Service.”

I frown. Something about the wording of the charges stirs something inside of me. Before, in her office, Venus had said that Crystal was being put on trial for gallivanting about with Cupid and his Match. There was no mention of conspiring. Venus doesn’t know we are conspiring to kill her. Does she?

I turn my head toward Crystal, whose face is panic stricken. She looks past me at Cupid, as though trying to tell him something. He stares straight ahead at his mother but he is no longer smiling.

Crystal’s eyes focus on me. The Finis, she mouths, it’s not—

Before Charles can finish reading the charges, and before Crystal can finish whatever she is trying to communicate, the doors to the room burst open. A red-tipped arrow flies straight past me and embeds itself in Charles’s chest. He crumples to the ground screaming.

Venus’s eyes flash with rage as a humorless laugh bubbles out of Cupid’s mouth.

“What is it, Mother?” he says. “Surprised to see your old friends?”

The Myths are here. I spot Charlie among them, her bow still raised and pointed at Venus’s PA. There are two agents on either side of her; the one who took us to the dungeons, and Curtis, who Cal must have talked around to our side. They raise their bows and shoot silver-and-pink arrows at Cupid and Crystal.

I feel a momentary flash of panic as I watch the arrows fly through the air, then relief as they hit the cables binding my two fellow captives. They burst free, stumbling forward onto the platform.

As soon as he’s regained his balance, Cupid darts forward. He grabs the head of our executioner, and in a sudden movement, breaks his neck. The executioner’s face looks momentarily surprised before he thuds to the ground.

The action jolts Venus’s army out of their stupor and behind me I hear the sounds of chairs crashing to the ground and arrows slicing through the air. Screams and shouts echo around the courtroom. Cupid, crouching by the dead executioner, catches my gaze.

Then he swipes a black arrow from the quiver and runs toward me. Reaching for my wrists, he stabs the cable with the arrowhead. The cable bursts apart, and I fall into his arms. For a split moment I bask in the feeling of safety, before he grabs my shoulders and brings my gaze to his face.

“Lila,” he says, his voice breathless, “come on.”

Holding my wrist he pulls me forward and we race off the platform. On the way one of the drum-bearing agents hurls himself toward us, but Cupid knocks him out with a hard blow to the face.

We leap over his body and dart past Pandora. She’s pointing a strange sort of gun at a female agent running toward her. A ball of energy bursts out of it, hitting her would-be attacker in the chest. The agent crumples to the floor, unconscious. Pandora grins.

“Sloth, sends them straight to sleep.” Then she bounds off, smacking another agent across the jaw with her weapon.

Cupid’s grip tightens around my wrist. “Come on.”

He pulls me past Medusa and a stone statue of an agent, his face contorted in pain, and toward an upturned jury bench, throwing me down behind it just as an arrow shoots past my cheek. He cups my face in his hand.

“Are you okay?” he whispers, his voice raw with emotion.

“I think so. Are you? What do we do now?”

Peering over the upturned bench, I see a blur of color as the Myths fight the army of cupids. Arrows fly through the air, and bodies and blood cover the mosaicked floor. I gasp as an agent points a black arrow at Crystal’s back. I’m about to shout to her but the Minotaur gets there first, picking up the archer and hurling him through the air. Then he turns and leaps on top of another agent, biting her neck until she crumples to the floor. He notices me looking and grins, red blood seeping from his mouth. I duck back out of sight, my stomach turning.

“I need to find my brother,” says Cupid. He leans forward and lightly brushes my lips with his. “I’ll be right back.”

He starts to get up but I pull him back down. “Venus said that Crystal was on trial for conspiring against her,” I say, my voice almost drowned out by the sounds of the battle. “What if she knows what we’re doing?”

Cupid grabs my hand and squeezes. “Something’s not right,” he agrees. “That’s why I need to go and help my brother. Just stay here—out of sight.”

“Let me help.”

He looks at me intensely for a moment.

“Please, Lila,” he says. “Original cupid here. I can handle this.”

I see the pleading behind his eyes and, reluctantly, I nod. He gives me a weak smile then darts back into the battle. I peer back over the top of the wooden bench as he goes, trying to find Cal. For a moment, I can’t see him among the chaos, then I catch sight of him disappearing behind a group of gladiators.

He’s making his way toward Venus, who, to my surprise, is still standing behind the flower-covered desk, a bored smile across her red lips.

Why isn’t she doing anything? Why is she just standing there?

Dread fills me. Something isn’t right.

I watch Cal as he reaches the edge of the stage. He pulls out the golden arrow from his quiver and raises it to his bow just as Cupid reaches the other side of the platform. It looks like Cal is about to shoot when Venus’s laugh suddenly booms about the courtroom, unnaturally amplified.

I throw my hands to my ears, and see Myths in the battle falling to their feet and doing the same.

In a disjointed movement she turns her head toward Cal. “Do you really think you could fool me?!”

Cal’s face whitens but he holds the bow steadily.

“I’ll admit, breaking my pets from the dungeons was a surprise, but did you really think I didn’t know that you had the Finis?” An incredulous expression flashes across her face. “I mean, helloo, I am a goddess, you know?”

Cal stares at her, determination etched on his angular face. “Then you know that when I shoot you with it, you will die.”

Venus giggles. “Oh, foolish boy. Even if you could hit me—don’t you know? Don’t you know anything about the Finis?”

Cal looks at her blankly and she shakes her head.

“Allow me to clear something up for you,” she says, her voice sickly sweet. “The Finis was forged by my tedious husband—the blacksmith of the gods. It was a weapon forged in secrecy, intended to destroy my illegitimate offspring and me. But here’s the catch: he didn’t want me to be able to harness its power, and so its power cannot be wielded by gods, or Myths, or cupids; I couldn’t destroy you with it any more than you could destroy me. It was created for the humans.”

She looks at Cal, a twisted smile on her face. A flash of understanding flickers across his eyes. “It will only work if shot by a mortal.”

She grins and gazes around the room, taking in the bodies scattered on the floor, and the Myths still crouched with their hands over their ears.

“But I believe we have one of those here, don’t we?” Venus says.

I clench my fists. Adrenaline surges through my body.

I am the only one who can save us.

“Guards, seize Cal.”

Cal frantically looks about the courtroom as agents swarm him. They grab his arms and the Finis clatters to the ground. He struggles but there are too many, and they drag him over to one of the black poles and bind him. One of the agents picks up the golden arrow and hands it to Venus. On the other side of the stage Cupid makes a move forward, but Venus glares at him and he stops in his tracks.

“Lila,” Venus says, her voice ringing in my ears, “I speak to you now. As the only mortal in the room, I have a decision for you to make. You see, you have been a very naughty little Match. And not just for matching with my son Cupid, but for feeling something for my other son too.”

My heart does a strange leap. What is she talking about? I don’t feel for Cal—not in that way.

“Oh, I know all about that. I am the goddess of love after all. You can’t hide it from me, even if you can hide it from yourself.” She laughs. “But I digress. I can’t kill Cal, but I am going to torture him. I’m going to torture him in every way imaginable. He will beg for death by the time I’m done with him—but I won’t stop.”

Cal begins to struggle against the pole, his eyes wide with panic. At the side of the stage Cupid’s face drains of color.

“But you can make it stop, Lila,” she says. “You just have to do one little thing for me: you need to make a decision. You need to choose a brother.”

She holds out the Finis in her pale hands, and her eyes fix on mine as I stare with horror over the top of the upturned bench.

“To save Cal, you have to kill Cupid.”