Chapter 42

"What the hell was that?"

"Alchemy, obviously. Try to keep up."

Tourmaline mostly ignored them. She'd already focused on the symbols above the two doors in the room, no doubt the next puzzle. Predictably, Greed was not so compliant.

"Yeah, homunculi can't use alchemy. I'm not stupid," Greed said. Pride raised an eyebrow. "So, what's going on? Who are you, really?"

"I am Pride." He was getting tired of clearing this up. "I am three hundred and twenty-seven years old. I didn't show up until the third day of your creation because I was busy working. And you weren't happy when I killed that human in the sewer."

That had the expected result of making Greed move away, going to stand by the wall. Pride had meant for that to happen, but his feelings once Greed did were strange. He'd never had a positive opinion on Greed before. Why would he care now? But he wanted Greed to stay.

"Ed. What did Ed do to you?"

Pride turned to Greed, hiding a certain amount of dread. It seemed Greed was still trying to figure out how he'd used alchemy, and it seemed he was getting close.

"Greed," Pride said warningly.

Apparently, that made things worse. "Did Ed . . . make you human or something?" Pride was not a human. He was very tired of being mistaken for one. Greed didn't let him respond. Apparently, whatever facial expression he pulled gave it away. "He did, didn't he? Or you would've shut me up by now. Oh that's great. Out of all our siblings, I can't think of anyone who'd hate that more."

"Give it a rest Greed." That wasn't Pride. That had been Tourmaline.

"What?"

"Huh?"

Tourmaline looked nervous, clasping her fingers tightly. "Look, I know I don't really understand what's going on. And I can't claim he seems like a good person." She gestured to Pride briefly. "But I don't think you should talk about forced species changes like that. It's never something to take lightly."

"Damn it," Greed said. He'd accepted that surprisingly quickly. "Fine. But everything else is still on the table."

It seemed he'd lost a lot his fear once he realized Pride couldn't use his shadows. Pride just focused on tuning out the sound and feelings of the body's organs. They became a lot more noticeable when people brought up his species.

"I'd be insulted if it wasn't," Pride replied.

Greed glared, gritting his teeth. "I'd just fight you if we weren't stuck here."

"You would fail."

"How?"

Before Pride could explain what a hopeless fighter Greed was, and that Pride could win with or without his shadows, there was a beep and the two doors in the room slid open. Tourmaline gestured for them to go forward, stepping into the next room, which was really more of a hall. It was longer than the previous rooms, and narrower, and it curved slightly. And there was a window. They were in space (unsurprisingly). Stars were all around, but they mostly congregated in one place, forming a sort of gold spiral, with what looked like a bar in the middle.

"Oh, we've left the solar system," Tourmaline said.

"Hang on. The solar system?" Greed asked.

"Yes."

"The big star system in space where all the planets are?"

"Yes. That's it, out there." She pointed to the congregation of stars.

Greed grinned, pointy teeth flashing. "Haha! Brilliant! This entire solar system will be mine!"

And there it was. Pride had called it two years ago.

Tourmaline was giving him a funny look. Pride waved a dismissive hand.

"Ignore him. He's like that."

"Don't ignore me," Greed said, following Tourmaline as she headed for the next door. This one didn't seem to have a riddle. "And don't trust him. He ate his own sibling."

"He wasn't really dead. Father could've separated us," Pride pointed out.

It made perfect sense at the time. There was a good chance they could've both died. If Pride absorbed Gluttony's stone he'd get Gluttony's ability and souls, and Gluttony's essence could still exist to be removed later. If either had been killed by the humans, that couldn't happen.

"You realize that doesn't make it better?" Greed asked.

It had made perfect sense at the time. It didn't now. Father hadn't saved either of them. Now all the homunculi were dead (and this couldn't be Greed). And he didn't want that.

"I'm aware," he said. He waved a hand dismissively, and had meant it to come across in his tone too, but he just sounded sort of resigned.

Greed looked surprised.

Tourmaline looked at the ceiling like she'd rather be anywhere else. She shuffled away from them and opened the next door. "That's odd."

They turned. Pride agreed. The next room was definitely a real room, not a hall. But there was no type of puzzle or riddle in sight. Pride felt himself tense up.

"This is weird," Greed said.

"Agreed," Tourmaline said.

"Stay in here. I don't die easily," Greed instructed her.

Then he took a step into the next room. He stood, hands on his hips, looking back and forth. Two panels in the floor slid back and two robots rose up out of them.

Ah yes, there it was.