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“What are you thinking about so intensely?” Apollo asked.

I hated that he wanted to know what I was thinking.

I loved that he wanted to know what I was thinking.

“Just that I’m excited to see the city tomorrow,” I croaked.

He nodded a little absently and leaned closer.

I fell back on my palms. “What are you doing?”

He pointed at my throat. “Your necklace is stuck to your hair. Do you want me to—”

“I can do it,” I muttered, glancing down to indeed find a lock of my hair wrapped around the chain. I tried to detangle it by tugging my hair up while pulling the chain downward, but then it popped and slipped off my neck altogether. “Oh no,” I murmured, gathering the broken silver pieces in my palm. “I ruined it.”

“It’s okay. At least your little butterfly is safe,” Apollo said gently. “When we get to the city, I’ll buy you a new chain. A prettier one.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I whispered.

He exhaled, suddenly exasperated, and stood up at once. “Let’s not make it a big deal.”

He fished the matchbox out of his pocket, opened it, and the magical fire swooshed back into it instantly. Then he busied himself with fastening his baldric and putting on his cape.

“Apollo?” I pressed.

“Yes, darling,” he said disinterestedly, not turning around to look at me.

It’s pointless, Nepheli. Forget about him and just focus on getting home. The Shop is waiting. You can still have a nice life in Elora. You can still find a way to grow in the same space you’ve always been in.

But if there was one thing I had learned from the plants in my Shop—and plants were indeed excellent teachers if you ever bothered to listen—was that when something stopped blooming, you didn’t just throw it out. You changed the soil. You repotted it. You gave it more room to grow.

I knew change couldn’t come withoutchange, but I did not feel brave enough to tell myself this truth now.

“Nothing,” was all I said, exhaling, and finally got up to my feet to help him gather our things. “Let’s just go.”

At one point last night, I had taken off my boots to relieve my skin from the friction, and as I grudgingly grabbed them now, I found the collars lined with soft, cottony pads. A little sound of surprise escaped me as I realized that Apollo must have taken them out of his own boots and put them in mine while I was asleep. “Apollo—”

“Shhh,” Apollo suddenly warned.

I swiveled around.

He was half-crouched under the cave’s mouth, his body drawn forward, ready to lunge at something.

Quickly, I slipped my boots on and stalked behind him to see what was going on outside and—oh gods. A massive grey-black,breathingball of fur was blocking part of our exit. A wolf. A demon.

Panic blazed down my throat and set my insides on fire. “What is it doing here in broad daylight?” I whisper-yelled, clutching Apollo’s arm to pull him back inside. But he was immovable. His eyes were bright with clarity, pinpointed on the wolf’s curled form.

“It’s injured,” Apollo said, and as I inched my head to the side and took a closer look at the creature, I indeed found that the knuckles of its spine were forced into a wrong angle and the fur around them was muddied with blood. It was clearly sleeping, letting out pulmonary sounds as though it had a hard time breathing. “Its pack must have left it behind. Fuck, it was probably prowling around the cave all night, and I didn’t even notice it.” He cursed under his breath again, furious with himself.

“Why didn’t it get in here, you know, to eat us?”

“Because this cave is sacred ground,” Apollo explained with a hiss. “Demons are soulless. They can’t enter it.”

The creature let out a guttural growl, and Apollo, quick as thunder, interposed himself between me and the exit.

“What are we going to do?” I wheezed, trying to remain calm and…think. Take a breath and think for a moment. There’s always a way.

Apollo glared at me over his shoulder as he unsheathed his sword, the clean, long blade shining in the cavernous semi-darkness. “Youaren’t going to do anything.”