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Gods, I was doing it again, wasn’t I? Judging people without ever trying to understand their true nature, the motives and traumas that had formed them into who they were.

No wonder I had no friends. No wonder no one would miss me if I literally fell from the sky and disappeared forever. It wasn’t only because I couldn’t find anyone to connect with in Elora. I was too self-absorbed, too comfortable in my aloneness, too scared to reach out. And I wanted to change. I wanted to be the kind of woman who could laugh and dance and flirt unabashedly. I wanted friendship and companionship and affection. I wanted to have a conversation with someone other than my cauldron. I wanted to be looked at the way Apollo had looked at me tonight. I wanted to shatter all of my walls. I just didn’t know…how.

“So the rumors are true. He didn’t choose this. Apollo is truly cursed,” I said hoarsely, a flurry of questions storming inside my head.

Walder’s brows bunched together. “He hasn’t told you anything?”

“We’re not friends,” I murmured, staring at my hands. “We really are just traveling companions.”

“Perhaps if you both tried a little,” Walder mused, “you could change that.”

“Friendship takes time, and we don’t have much left,” I argued, and a small part of me ached at the thought of going back home to an empty apartment and a tedious routine, utterly unchanged.

Walder tasted his wine with a thoughtful expression on his face. “I’d like to believe that time doesn’t determine how you feel about someone. It’s the experiences and conversations and interactions, no matter how brief, that bring two people closer.”

Feeling dizzy from the head-splitting combination of wine, anxiousness, and the spider-thin prickle of indecision, I chewed at the corner of my lip while some kind of resolution slowly took space in my chest.You can do it, Nepheli, a small voice inside me cheered.You can become someone better. You can learn how to reach out. It’s not too late.

I sucked in a breath.“I think I’ll go check on him.”

Walder broke into a giant, heartening smile. “You do that.”

I headed toward the rosewood staircase, my skirts swishing with impatience around my ankles and the little butterfly pendant on my clavicle burning with something like hope.

15

Nepheli

Iknocked on Apollo’s door a couple of times—the dark blue one on my left, as Walder had instructed—before cracking it open and sticking my head inside.

“Apollo, are you here?” I called, and here he was, indeed, with his suspenders dangling from his hips, his trousers half-unbuttoned, and his shirt completely undone, the bronze valley of his chest and abdomen peering in between.

He whirled on me. “Who the fuck knocks on a door and doesn’t wait for an answer?”

“What can I say? Your crude ways are rubbing off on me,” I drawled as I strolled inside, preoccupying myself with the details of the room and not the beauty of his body.

The room was ocean-themed. Turbulent seas for wallpaper, sand-colored rugs on the floor, and clusters of foamy lights hanging from the ceiling.

That’s it, Nepheli, keep looking at the lights. Keep your eyes on the—

I stole a glance at him. He was leaning against the mahogany dresser, looking annoyed—and a little flustered. “How can I help you this fine evening, Nepheli darling?”

“You were supposed to show me how to use my new dagger after dinner, remember?” I prodded as I tottered towards the four-poster bed and hooked my arm around one of its lean columns for some steadiness. My knees felt numb and my head heavy, which was not ideal, but if I’d been sober, I wouldn’t have found the courage for this conversation at all.

“Not in the mood,” he said as he turned away to face the gold-framed mirror above the dresser. He shrugged off his shirt, and for a hazy, wine-infused moment, I found myself wondering how it would feel to bury my face in that perfect curve on the slope of his back. Everything about him was so masculine, so perfectly hard. But that curve on his body was sculpted by a tender hand.

Get yourself together, girl. He’s just a man,the voice of reason huffed inside my head, but another voice, a clearly intoxicated one, felt the need to point out that not many men had backs that looked likethat.

I shook my head as if it were possible to physically expel the thought from my mind. “Let’s do something you’re in the mood for, then,” I offered, hoping I didn’t sound too eager.

Apollo glanced at me through the mirror, his face dark. He had demons in his eyes. Destructive ones. “Lie back on the bed for me, darling,” he said.

I blinked, certain I’d misheard him. My heart—much like the rest of me—floundered in confusion. In fact, I could not remember a time in which my heart had beaten such a fragile rhythm. I could feel it just below the surface of my skin. Throbbing. Leaping. “What did you say?”

“Go to sleep, Nepheli,” he sighed tiredly as he threw the rumpled shirt into the first drawer. “We have a long journey tomorrow.”

“It’s going to rain tomorrow,” I announced, sitting down at the foot of the bed. I rested my weight on my palms and felt the plush duvet with my fingertips. It was softer than a heap of feathers, and I was very much tempted to collapse over it. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay and spend some time with Walder? You didn’t talk much with him tonight.”

“It’s not going to rain tomorrow,” was all Apollo said.