“Where were you?” Mirai demanded.

It was past midnight, and Venus’s soaked gown seemed to drip rubies like blood. Mirai had to hand it to Latenue; the brilliant designer created the illusion of crystallized blood, distracting any passersby from looking too closely at Venus’s face. All while appearing fashionable.

Venus grabbed Mirai’s wrist and pulled him into an alley near Latenue’s shop. Nearby, the Doctor yelped in alarm and followed them. The glowing green eyes behind his plague mask darted back and forth as he scouted for potential witnesses.

Venus detached the gold circlet around her head and pulled off her dark orange wig, holding it at her waist so the ends almost reached the hem of her dress. She shook her glittery auburn hair out of its ponytail so the ends brushed her bare shoulders. Now she was Mi-sun—a girl, not a goddess.

“I killed her,” she said in a booming, ominous voice.

“Venus!” the Doctor exclaimed, eyeing a drunk squatter suspiciously.

Mi-sun turned off the voice distorter at her collarbone. “My bad.”

“Mi-sun,” Mirai whispered, “what happened?”

Tears ran down Mi-sun’s face, ruining her eyeshadow. Already designed to make her eyes appear bigger, now her eyes actually appeared to melt down her rosy cheeks, the sclera coagulating like egg whites. Orange eyeshadow, applied to match her contact lenses and wig, streaked through as thick bloody rivulets. With the flickering lamplight, she looked more like a ghost than a god.

Mirai shuddered and averted his gaze. And then Mi-sun told her story.

She spoke slower than usual to ensure that both Mirai and Elias understood every word. Mirai found himself enraptured by her unfolding tale: a bearded ivory woman leaning down to stare up at her as Elias translated the General’s threat; a disfigured girl flying down to carry Venus away, recognizing her as Mi-sun the trainee; a demand for an alliance, an autograph, and a date.

“And where is she now?” Elias inquired. “This Ulyana Sidorova you speak of.”

I killed her, Mirai remembered her inhumanly amplified, distorted voice. Except now, he heard it in his brother’s voice, if his brother had survived. He heard it in his own voice.

Mi-sun waved her hand dismissively. She has beautiful hands, Mirai noticed. Her fingers were long and slim—he could imagine her taking piano lessons—and her hands were soft and pink, having never experienced manual labor like the fishermen in the village where his parents grew up. And of course, her fingernails were painted red on her right hand and white on her left hand to match the Red and White Arrows.

“Ulya was hideous. Both she and her circus angel can rot for all I care. I don’t want her as an ally; my goal is to create a beautiful world, and I’ll get rid of anything ugly.”

Mirai’s heart sank. He thought of the bright, cunning girl who found him on Halloween night; the generous, bubbly young woman who treated him to tea; the romantic, hopeful dreamer riding a horse-drawn carriage in Paris with him. How could he have misjudged someone so awfully? He was disappointed in her and in himself. But what he said was, “If you were planning to kill her from the beginning, why did you spend the day with her?”

Mi-sun didn’t miss a beat. “I wanted to wait for the right time.”

“Huh?”

Nasse cut in. For once, her high-pitched voice took on a more somber tone. It chilled Mirai. “Your aunt did the same when she killed your parents and little brother.”

Mi-sun’s dark eyebrows shot up, but she said nothing. Elias removed his mask and bowed his head.

Baret placed a hand on Nasse’s skinny shoulder. Mirai never expected to see one angel comforting another angel. The Angel of Knowledge softly said, “You loved the Kakehashi family.”

“They were pure of heart—like Ulya.” Nasse glared at Mi-sun. “I liked Ulya too.”

Mi-sun cried without making a sound, the tears falling and marring her face in white-and-orange eyeshadow. “I wanted to wait until I could do it without attracting attention until I’m ready. But then she kept talking about herself, and I ended up listening. Like every ugly girl, she had a sad story. But unlike most sad stories, she padded hers with funny moments.” Mi-sun’s mouth twitched into a smile. Mirai wanted to wipe it away the way some boys wanted to wipe away a pretty girl’s tears. “She told me how once, the trapeze artist stole the ringmaster’s peanuts and stuffed them into his pockets. But he forgot to remove them before his act, and peanuts rained down all over the circus ring. The crowd thought it was part of the spectacle, so a brave volunteer stepped forward to feed the peanuts to the circus beasts and almost got her hand bitten off!”

Elias chuckled. Mirai didn’t smile. Too bad the mask didn’t also cover his eyes, because Mi-sun noticed his stern gaze. She scowled up at Nasse and snapped, “If you liked Ulya so much, why’d you choose Mirai?”

Nasse pretended to think it over. Angels couldn’t lie, but they could choose their words carefully. “I liked Ulyana but I hated her parents and older siblings. But I love Mirai, and I loved his parents and his younger brother.”

This answer didn’t satisfy Mi-sun. She went on, “Revel chose me because I have a goal for when I become God; Baret chose Elias because she respects his connections and strategizing. So why, Nasse, did you choose Kakehashi Mirai?”

Nasse giggled, her usual self returned. “Because he’s pure of heart, silly. He comforts others when they’re bullied, but when he’s the one everyone makes fun of, he doesn’t expect any comfort. And he didn’t get any. Ever since he lost his family, the naughty kids called him funny names and left him out of their silly games. My favorite was when they held their noses at him and called him a smelly pig, you know, ‘cause his uncle drank a lot and beat him up until he smelled like alcohol and looked all pink like a pig!”

Mirai pulled his hood down lower and muttered, “Just share my dark past, why don’t you?”

“Oh, I just did. Unless you wanted me to also talk about…”

Elias looked at Mirai with pity. Mi-sun interrupted Nasse in an obnoxious voice. “Are you sure you’re an angel?”

“Of course! I’m the Angel of Purity, silly, and one of the highest-ranking angels as part of the Ophanim.”

Revel shook his head. “I can’t believe she’s Ophanim while I’m Cherubim.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re the Angel of Trickery, and the current god prefers purity. I don’t know any other way angels can change rank, ‘cause it hasn’t been done in over ten thousand years!”

“Sometimes,” Baret interjected, “angels change too. We are not as stagnant as you may think.”

Mi-sun rolled her eyes. She poked Mirai. “Didn’t anyone stand up for you?”

“No.”

“I would have.”

“I doubt that.”

Mi-sun stuck out her tongue. “Yeah, I would’ve been one of those bullies too.”

Elias stared at her. “You look too nice to be a bully.”

“I killed an innocent girl less than an hour ago.”

Mirai stared at her. She looked so innocent and kind; how could someone like her be a bully, much less a murderer? But then, if he imagined peeling off all the makeup and gouging out the colored contact lenses, she very nearly resembled one of those bullies.

…

TEN YEARS AGO

Seven-year-old Mirai Kakehashi played with seven-year-old Saki Hanakago in a field of clovers. Before Mirai’s family was killed, before the world turned to hell and Mirai found himself in a world of shinigami and aspiring gods who would hunt each other down, he had been a child who could have fun with another child, and the deadliest threat was a bumblebee that bumped Mirai’s nose and made him sneeze.

Saki giggled. “That means someone is talking about you, Mirai.”

Mirai grinned at her. “Probably the bumblebee. ‘Where’s the flower with the yummy honey? Buzz-buzz—oops, that’s not a flower!’”

Saki laughed harder. Mirai liked seeing her happy, and he continued, “Or maybe it’s my little brother Aki talking about me to my parents over there. I think he’s angry ‘cause I ate the last rice cracker. ‘How could he? I saved it! But no, a thief took it—my own brother, no less! I have been bee-trayed!’”

Saki kept laughing until she keeled over and rolled on the grass, staining her white sundress. Mirai kneeled next to her. “Or maybe it’s your parents watching you and wondering what I’m saying to make you laugh so hard. ‘That boy is bad trouble! He’s gonna give our precious Saki breathing problems because she’s laughing too much!’”

“They look too happy to be thinking that. And you look too happy to be bad trouble.”

Mirai lay down on the grass and spread out his arms like he was making a snow angel among the clovers. Above him, the sky shone pale blue. “Of course I’m happy. I’m with you, and Aki, and our parents, and everyone is together and happy…” He almost dozed off, the clouds lulling him, and he grabbed a handful of clovers and let them fall onto his chest.

Saki began to pick them off, one by one, until she exclaimed, “You found a four-leaf clover!”

Mirai bolted up, the rest of the clovers falling off him. Saki held up the four-leaf clover, where a golden ladybug perched on the middle. He beamed. “And you found a lucky ladybug. That’s double happiness!”

Saki gently blew on the ladybug so it landed on Mirai’s nose. Her smile carried all the sweetness of a child’s naïveté. “We’ll be happy forever, right?”

Mirai stared cross-eyed at the ladybug on his nose and rambled, “We’ll be friends and family and we’ll have all the happiness forever and ever…”

A week later, his parents’ car blew up. He lost Akira, his parents—everyone, because as his classmates turned on him, Saki joined them. As his skin burned from the explosion, he wondered what lies Saki told her parents to prevent them from checking up on him. Or maybe they were as mean and cruel as their daughter. Mirai didn’t know what to believe anymore. He lost faith in her, in Kira, and in God.

When he graduated from middle school, he sighed in relief, hoping that high schoolers would be more mature—or at least too self-involved to bother bullying him. His middle school classmates ignored him by then. He let his gaze travel across them coolly, relishing that he might never see them again. Having abusive foster parents motivated him to spend more time in the library, where he studied harder for entrance exams to a high school farther away. He could leave at least this part of his past behind.

One student met his gaze. Saki Hanakago’s light brown eyes widened, raising her eyebrows as though in fear. Her cheeks were flushed. She opened her mouth to say something, but Mirai walked away. He didn’t think she would have bullied him again—everyone else was over it—so what did she have to say to him? An apology? He didn’t want to hear it. All the four-leaf clovers and golden ladybugs in the world wouldn’t restore their friendship and happiness.

He found out later that she drowned herself that day. The beaches were empty at night in March. Despite the chill left behind from winter, she’d stripped out of her uniform and undergarments and waded deeper, deeper… the water reached her waist, then her chest… and then the beach was truly empty. Angels watched from above but did not intervene. Mirai himself had seen her but chose not to listen. Once in a while, guilt pricked at him, but more than that, regret burned him. Over time, the memory of her bullying had mostly faded. When he thought of her at all, he remembered her wide eyes as she tried to call out to him, and he remembered their innocence, when they thought all it would take was a four-leaf clover and a golden ladybug to be happy together forever.

But she had killed herself.

And he was damned.

…

“Who’s Hanakago Saki?” Mi-sun asked.

Mirai hadn’t realized he said her name out loud. She’s you, he wanted to tell the god candidate before him. Except not really. For all her cruelty and callousness, Mi-sun had initiative. She had a goal. She took it upon herself to find other god candidates and build alliances until she no longer needed them. If Revel had been Ophanim, Mirai knew without a doubt that Mi-sun would use her White Arrows to achieve her dream sooner. Despite her crimes, Mirai couldn’t help but admire her.

But he was no fool. He loved her, and maybe she loved him back, but when it came time to choose, she would choose her ideal, beautiful world over his companionship. Mirai had to keep his distance.

He smiled. “No one important.”

…

The fame got to Mi-sun. She had never made her debut as an idol, but she imagined this is what it would be like.

Less than twelve hours after she confessed her murder to Mirai and Elias, the Parisians discovered Ulyana’s body in the river. The leeches and decay overtook her body fast. Mi-sun almost vomited. At that moment, she envied her allies, whose masks helped block the stench. As far as she knew, they weren’t even looking.

The truth was, a body didn’t decay this fast. Mi-sun knew because before her, another trainee had attempted suicide. But unlike her, this trainee had no pitying or mocking angel to intervene. Mi-sun and the other trainees had screamed when they saw Seo Yoon’s body draped over the toilet. The stench of vomit permeated the air, and an empty prescription bottle lay sideways next to Seo Yoon’s slim, pale hand. Mi-sun and the trainees had discussed what they should do, and they decided to do nothing. Reporting Seo Yoon’s death would bring in police and investigators, and they were far too busy to spend time giving testimonies as witnesses. The agents would also be annoyed if they had to update their mental health policy by actually implementing a mental health policy. No, it would be far too inconvenient. So they left Seo Yoon’s body there. At least someone had the decency to flush the toilet and bring in an air freshener.

For the next week or so, most of the girls avoided that restroom. Mi-sun, however, was entranced by death. She visited every day after practice to check on Seo Yoon’s corpse and watch the dreadful transformation. Sometimes she even spoke to the dead girl, sharing her deepest fears and giggling at the insanity of it all.

Then one day, Seo Yoon’s body disappeared. The agency finally figured out that no trainee would be truant this long, or maybe they gave Seo Yoon the boot and her family made inquiries. Either way, they kept it all very hush hush. No police officers came to investigate; no policies changed. A year later, Mi-sun tried to follow suit with a more dignified death—when her fellow trainees would find her, the restroom would smell like carbon instead of vomit.

Maybe it was too dignified a death for Mi-sun, because Revel interrupted. Yes, Mi-sun didn’t deserve a good death; she deserved something more wretched than Seo Yoon Han and Ulyana Sidorova and Maria Campbell. Yet here she was, a radiant god candidate with vivid dreams of beauty and a beautiful world. She giggled.

Revel raised an eyebrow inquisitively, his lips curling up in a faint smile. The Parisians were not as amused. They yelled at her in French. She didn’t understand them, but she got the gist of their accusations. With a toss of the wig’s long orange hair, she boldly announced that yes, she had killed this little girl. Because she was like Neo Kira, and this girl was like them, and everyone like them needed to be disposed of eventually, sooner rather than later if they were as ugly as pitiful Ulyana Sidorova.

Not even Kira had had such a dramatic debut.

For the next couple of weeks, Venus basked in the fame. Oh sure, police officers and detectives and well-intentioned citizens hounded on her, but she just shot some of them with Red Arrows to pacify them. She didn’t have wings to fly away like Morning and the Doctor, but shooting people with Arrows was more fun than running away. Besides, what future god runs away from her future worshippers?

Although Revel and Baret claimed that Venus had unlimited Red Arrows, the more that she used them, the more it hurt. When she took off her long gloves at night, she began noticing the dreadful transformation.

It started with a pimple—oh, the sheer horror! Then the pimple blossomed into a row of rashes like rosebuds. And then the rashes burst into painful scabs that affected her handwriting. Why did the Red Arrow have to come out of her right hand? Neo Kira used his White Arrows about as frequently, so she wondered if his hand burned too.

She didn’t notice how distant she’d become from her allies until Elias invited her to his family home in Oranienburg. “Are you inviting Mi-sun or Venus?”

“Do you think I am Elias Hartmann or the Doctor?”

Mi-sun left behind her wig, though she wore a pair of burgundy gloves to hide her hands. She showed up as Mi-sun Lee, the pretty young woman who had trained as a K-pop idol and now made a living… let’s say, working as Latenue’s apprentice. That’s the story she’d tell Elias’s family. She visited Latenue often and helped out at the designer’s shop sometimes, so it wouldn’t be too far off.

A plump, rosy-cheeked woman opened the door. She beamed when she saw Mi-sun. “You must be Mi-sun! I’m Edith Hartmann—Elias’s wife. Come in; it’s been a while since we’ve had guests.” Her English was very good, the W’s sounding like V’s the only indication it wasn’t her native language.

Mi-sun took off her high heel boots, the zippers jingling, and put on a pair of pastel guest slippers with pompoms over the toes. She remembered how Mirai wore sneakers in his own apartment, a habit from growing up with an alcoholic uncle who left trash everywhere in the house. But she still couldn’t help but think that the Hartmann family was more Japanese than Kakehashi.

The house smelled like roasted meat and a potato dish Mi-sun couldn’t identify. It gave the place a cozy, homy atmosphere—certainly more inviting than the training agency with heavy perfumes, sweat, and Seo Yoon’s decaying body in the restroom.

Mi-sun cleared her thoughts. She didn’t want to associate corpses with such a lovely family home. Flowers crowded the living room, and Mi-sun had to be careful not to knock them over. Edith explained over her shoulder, “Neighbors and extended family have been bringing them over ever since finding out about my husband’s diagnosis. Please don’t do the same. We’re already making plans to dispose of these wretched plants so Mina can have more room to play again.”

As if on cue, a little girl with the same rosy cheeks as Edith barreled down the stairs and almost knocked over a row of flowers. Mi-sun and Edith caught them before they tumbled down. Mina grinned up at Mi-sun. “Are you my daddy’s new friend? Daddy and Madame Lah-tuh-noo talk about you.”

Mi-sun crouched to smile up at Mina. The little girl had the same observant pale blue eyes as her father, though she was far more innocent. “That’s right. I’m Madame Latenue’s assistant. She and your daddy helped me out a lot.” She thought of Venus’s gown and gloves stashed safely away.

“Daddy says you’ll help him too.”

Mi-sun shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course Elias Hartmann didn’t help her for free. It made sense he wanted a favor too. Baret chose him for strategy, after all. Mi-sun wondered what she had that would benefit the Doctor. Fame? Beauty? Sheer cold-heartedness?

“Your tailoring skills and eye for aesthetic,” Elias said over dinner.

Edith flinched, but her hands didn’t shake as she served Mi-sun a generous heaping of potatoes. Mina shoved a forkful of meat and potato into her mouth and mumbled, “Wuff ur the guff for?”

“Mina,” Edith chided.

Mi-sun smiled sweetly. “Like your daddy said, I have an eye for aesthetic. These gloves match my hair and go well with my outfit.” The burgundy gloves complemented her pale blue silk top and sparkly cobalt leggings.

Elias continued, “I have various sketches of dresses for Mina as she grows up. Latenue has artistic license to adjust them as she sees fit, and of course, you will assist her.”

Mi-sun glanced at Edith. From the rosy-cheeked woman’s painful expression, Mi-sun understood the conversation that had taken place between the couple before: Elias wouldn’t live long enough to watch Mina grow up and give her the dresses himself. The cancer was only half of it.

Mi-sun looked back at Elias, whose piercing pale blue eyes communicated what he really wanted. Of course, he couldn’t give a damn about her assisting Latenue; just because she was pretty didn’t mean she had the dark-skinned designer’s talent. But out of all the remaining god candidates, Mi-sun was one of the likeliest to become the next God, as long as she evaded Neo Kira and the General. And as her ally, he had more insight into her motives than the others. He knew what kind of world she wanted.

Edith and Mina were pretty enough but not up to Mi-sun’s standards. Elias wanted to assure their well-being when Mi-sun became God. This was the price of her name and image—two individuals’ lives of mere decades for over ten thousand years as Venus.

It was a small price to pay.

Mi-sun nodded with a smile. “I’ll make sure Mina has the most beautiful dresses in the world. And I’ll help Latenue fix something up for Mrs. Hartmann too.”

Edith chuckled. “Please, call me Edith.”

Elias stared at Mi-sun a moment longer and then nodded. If you don’t keep your end of the deal, the beautiful people in your world will mar themselves and die hideous deaths. I’ll make sure of it as a shinigami. She could almost hear him say it. It’s what she would do, after all.

Mina blurted out, “What kind of beautiful dresses? Like for a wedding? That’s ages away!”

“It can take a long time to make a proper dress, Vögelchen.”

Edith flinched again, and this time she let out a small cry. Elias didn’t have long to live. And she knew only half of it.

Whether it was the cancer or the fate of a doomed god candidate, Elias Hartmann would be dead by the end of the year.