After the Fall

They drank until the edge of the night blurred into something soft and stupid. The garden lamps threw down pools of yellow that made everyone look a little kinder than they felt. Bottles sat half buried in the grass, empty and dusty with fingerprints. Chairs had been dragged into a loose ring.

Someone—Julian, most likely had hauled a speaker out and set it on a low table, it thumped a careless beat into the dark as though sound could steady the tilt of the evening.

Ares had a ...