“Oh, good,” Arius said instead, “police.” He straightened himself up, greeted the officers calmly, and let them restrain the demigod who he had been holding.

“Was this man bothering you, Ravager?” one policeman asked.

“Yeah. He took a picture of my friend. Confiscate his phone and have it deleted. Search the bystanders for any digital record of this incidence.”

“Yes sir,” both officers said in unison.

Val watched with wide eyes. She almost could not believe that she had been expecting anything less than absolute worship of Arius. These officers might literally send their prayers to him. Arius was the god of war and Suvier’s favorite son, seated second on the Pantheon. Of course he could do anything that he wanted.

“Ravager,” the demigod shouted, “please take pity on me. It was a stupid mistake!”

Shifting around in discomfort, Val watched Arius turn away from the arrest.

His desperate eyes flitted to Val as the one who paid him any attention. “Do you know what the punishment is for crossing your friend there?”

She did not know, and as it turned out, Arius did not know either.

As he spun around, he opened up his arms and walked backwards. “I don’t know and don’t care. My dad makes the rules, I just play the game. See ya!” When the demigod continued talking, Arius plugged two fingers into his ears. “Nope! I can’t hear you.” His painfully immature personality shone through, especially in the face of what the demigod said.

Again, he had not been trying to appeal to Arius in the first place but Val. His wide eyes pleaded with her as he said, “The prison sentence is a decade! I don’t want to lose that many years of my life just because I offended your friend.”

Her mouth opened, about to say something.

“Val,” Arius snapped as he returned to her side, “we’re leaving.” Already, he had scooped up Foofy under one arm and now grabbed a hold of her wrist. Before she could object, he flew off with her.

“Arius,” she said, much harsher, “did you hear what that man just said?”

“No.”

“Do you really not want to know the repercussion for people taking pictures of you?” In this case, the photograph had actually been of Val.

“No, and you’re not going to tell me unless it was either torture for eternity or the death sentence. Those would be too extreme.”

Were those really the only two punishments that were too extreme? As she glanced at the new building passing beneath them, she tried to assess her chances of twisting out of Arius’s grip and landing on one of their roofs. Now that would be extreme in a whole different way.

In truth, Val did not want to associate with this. A pang of guilt swept through her, as she even had Divine Judgement as her most powerful and versatile skill to set things right. Despite that, she had wallowed in inaction back there.

Meanwhile, Arius justified what had happened. “If I don’t scare people, then rumors are going to spread that I’ve become soft. It will cause more of that sort of behavior rather than less!”

Val latched her free hand onto Arius’s forearm and squeezed him there. Though she was not certain that he had the best way of reducing unwanted publicity about himself, she could sense that trying to tell him otherwise would not end well. Val did not have anything meaningful to say, but she did not like it.

“As far as I’m concerned,” Arius continued, “I was plenty nice back there. There is no such thing as a paparazzi that comes after the gods—at least not certain ones of us. Some gods took it upon themselves to brutally murder anyone who came near them with a camera.”

“Let me shower you in praise you for not killing anybody,” Val said, her voice laden with sarcasm.

Arius scowled at her. “Of course not. I don’t kill civilians.”

“Fine,” she admitted. Considering how Tavras had upped and killed a quarter of a million people one night, maybe she should give Arius a bit more slack. Even so, her mood had been soured by the way that he had snapped at her. “Why did you yell at me back there?”

Huffing a sigh, he said, “I’m sorry. I know that it was uncalled for, and if I were anyone else, I would happily listen to your suggestions anywhere. You have to understand that I have a reputation to uphold though, and you will not tell me what to do in public.”

Her eyes drew wide as did her mouth fall open. Shock lay over her too thickly to speak immediately. On the timeline of women’s rights, Val supposed that she had just upgraded from the thousand-year-old god to the hundred-year-old god, but Arius was still terrible. “Fuck,” she breathed.

“What?” Arius asked.

“It’s nothing.” Val shrugged, more of a gesture that Arius could feel as he held her arm while flying. “You’re just acting like an old god.” Despite claiming that he had a reputation to uphold, he had acted quite childishly back there.

This time, his voice sharpened in offense. “What?” he repeated. “Oh.” Modern standards must have just dawned on him, as he quickly followed that up with, “Oh no. I guess I just have nothing to say for myself then.” Arius’s eyes jumped from cloud to cloud as they flew by. “Yeah. I’ve got nothing.”

Val could feel herself seething. It was probably best if he did not say anything.

“I will make it up to you in other ways, Val. I promise.” From the corner of his eyes, he stole a glance to her with a devilish smile. Between Arius’s helpful demeanor and handsome face, Val would overlook this for now.

The fact remained that it had only taken one day for the rose that was Arius to reveal its thorns.

“We’re heading to the port next,” he said. “There will be an official there who can change your aura imprint.”

Her attention shifted to where the city met with the sea, their most important stop on the itinerary for today. She could not wait to see how Arius would behave once there.