Val and Tavras had been having a great day together, at least until a third presence had to put a damper on their high spirits. Waiting outside their home, Arius watched them approach with not an ounce of shame on his face. He was smiling at them wickedly.

“What are you doing here?” Tavras snapped as they approached.

“You have fish in those boxes!” Arius cheered. “Can I have a fish?” With one hand, he reached out to grasp a bag from the box which Tavras held.

“No.”

Arius stopped his hand in midair and let it drop in defeat. “Okay.” An exaggerated tone of sadness filled his voice, but he flipped that right back around. “Val here will let me hold a fish, right?”

“No,” she repeated, equally as stern as Tavras.

Letting Arius hold a fish was out of the question since she would never betray Tavras like that. Given the fervor that he had killed sea serpents in the past, Arius might just pop a bag with an innocent fish simply out of spite.

At the decline of his request, his lips fell for a second. Then, Arius laughed and put the smile back on his face. “I suppose that all of these fish belong to the Sea Itself. You are being quite kind in helping him carry them and respecting his wishes as to who gets to touch his fish.”

Why was Arius complimenting her for no reason at all? With nothing to say to that, Val just glared at him.

“What is your dog’s name?”

“Foofy.”

“Foofy!” Arius’s eyes lit up and he looked down as if to address him. “That is the best name ever. You are the goodest boy ever, aren’t you?” Flitting his attention back up to Val, he asked, “Can I pet him?”

“No, and don’t baby talk my dog.”

“Whoops. I’m sorry.”

Val narrowed her eyes at him. What gave him any idea that he had a right to their pets? It was not just Val being overly aggressive towards the god that subjugated Tavras, but also Foofy did not look like he wanted to be touched by Arius either.

His body stood rigid as Foofy let out a low growl at Arius. If Foofy did not like a person, Val would trust his instincts over anything she saw in the past. Arius was most certainly bad news.

On top of that, something seemed off about him based on the emotional input that she received from Keep the Peace. Arius seemed to have a significant degree of negative emotions around him in the same way when they had met. It seemed like he was trying way too hard to act happy. At least that much made sense, because Tavras probably put him in an equally bad mood as he put them in.

That begged the question: why was Arius bothering to harass them?

“I said this just yesterday, and I will say it again,” Tavras said. “Cut the crap. What do you want from me?”

“I don’t want anything from you.” With a tilt of his head, Arius put on an attempt at a pleasant smile. “I want something from him—or should I say her?”

“Damn it.” Did Val just say that aloud? One hand covered over her lips, but then again, neither Tavras nor Arius seemed to care if she used foul language.

“Come inside, I guess.” Despite the gravity of the situation, Tavras gave a nonchalant shrug. Opening the door with his elbow, he pushed his way inside and left the door open for them to follow.

“Ladies first,” Arius said with a wink and that cocky, ugly smile.

Her eyes squinted up to him with hate. Val did not even care if he knew that she hated him. That much should be obvious simply by the unfavorable relationship that he had with her mentor.

On top of that, Arius’s personality did nothing to help things. It was one thing if he could see through her disguise upon first meeting her, but the way that he gloated about it was overkill.

Her heavy steps tromped inside, weighed down by both anger and dread. How much trouble would Val be in now that she had been exposed? Something in her gut told her that she would be visiting the afterworld soon. She was so dead. If her little ruse as a boy mattered enough for the Ravager—the second most powerful god in the world—to personally address the issue of her hidden identity, Val could only see her death sentence, imminent.

With trembling fingers, she set the box of fish on the counter and turned back to keep an eye on Arius. Thankfully, she had dug up some moral weaponry on him last night so that she could hopefully use Divine Judgement out of self-defense. Where she would go after attacking Arius and becoming an enemy to the state, she had no idea. Hopefully Tavras had a back-up plan

Instead, he seemed not to care much for the situation at all. “You will have to wait while I take care of the fish.” Of course, fish mattered more to Tavras than Val’s vulnerable position. Likewise, he turned his back on the Ravager to carry the fish down the hall.

Val looked to Arius at the exact time that she looked to him. Their confused glances held for a second too long.

He turned his back on her, almost with a shy haste. Though she could not see his face from this angle, the tips of his ears looked heated around his red hair. Did he just blush?

Two fingers pressed into the center of Val’s forehead. Something was wrong with her. Clearly, her mind liked to conjure up some delusions about every insanely powerful god that she encountered liking her.

If she had a fetish for strong gods, that would be one thing—and quite understandable. There were most definitely some fan clubs of teenage girls devoted to some of the gods, Arius being the most popular. He hit all of the right chords for that demographic: golden boy as Suvier’s favorite son, bad guy as the god of war, and he was even young on the standard of immortals. Val liked to think of herself as a respectable demigoddess, so she never engaged in any fantasies with gods that she might actually meet one day.

The way that she was acting, she might as well be a random teenage girl. This was getting way out of hand. Val refused to have a thing for life-or-death situations, so she doubled down on Arius being the weird one.

After all, his behavior made no sense and only got stranger as he gave himself free reign of the house. Arius walked down the hall after Tavras and opened every closed door and looked inside. “I figured that this would be an illegal unit. That’s good. This way, we can all talk.”

As he started walking back, Tavras made his move.

Metal crunched and a gush of water surged from the bathroom. Caught off guard, Arius was slow in throwing some blades of red energy to intercept the water. Some of the water slammed into him and pushed Arius into the next room.

“Val, run!” Tavras called, hidden behind another wall.

Her hands slapped against the tabletop, and she sprinted for the door. “Foofy! Come!” Instantly, her pulse had leaped into a rapid pound, just like her feet against the floor. Val reached the door and moved to throw it open.

Val put faith in Tavras to take care of himself because it looked like she would have to abandon him here in a fight with Arius.