16

Apiece of advice: you should never, ever drink wine on a mostly empty stomach, and certainly not if said wine is a fae thing.

But what was worse than the splitting headache, the churning stomach, and that gods-awful sweet tang that wouldn't leave my mouth was that nothing about last night had been done drunkenly. No, I'd been plenty aware of my actions. And their consequences.

I began to understand the true power of words the first few months after the curse. It became the easiest thing in the world for me to hurt the people I loved without even realizing that I was doing it. A curt reply, a piece of unsympathetic advice, an absentminded murmur to a serious question, or simply saying nothing at all. Imagine being so powerful that even your absence could destroy someone—that was how obliterating words were.

And Nepheli needed to hear them. She needed to understand just how heartless I was before she started hoping for my friendship… or worse.

Tell me you're terrified of hurting someone. Of becoming the heart-eating monster the papers love to write about. Tell me we can't be friends because I have a heart and you don't, and we both know what this means.

Of course, she'd seen right through the act. I didn't expect anything less from Nepheli Curiosity. But the words hurt her nonetheless, and that was all that mattered. She needed to hate me. She needed not to stare up at me, wine-dazed and expectant, wondering about my mouth on hers.

I'd wanted to kiss her too. I'd wanted to do terrible, wicked, marvelous things to her, and gods help me, I'd been closer than ever to losing control.

She was so, so beautiful. The way she'd lain back on that bed with the slit of her dress billowing off her thighs, her pale skin flushed, and her wine-stained lips slightly parted was almost devastating to watch, knowing I couldn't ever have her. But her beauty was also so much more than skin and shape. She was beautiful for the way she talked about the things that excited her. She was beautiful for wanting to give someone like me a chance. She was beautiful for the way she craved companionship but was too scared of not being good enough for it—ironic how it was always the best people who were worried about not being good enough.

And Nepheli was more than just good.

Nepheli was a star. She affected others like that. Instantly, in the second of a glance. You looked at her, and you felt her softness blazing down on you, filling you to the bone. Starlight.

I stood on the silent doorstep of the cottage five minutes before dawn, wishing she would not come. Walder could help her get home, or I could send someone to escort her once I reached Thaloria. She was a grown woman. She could manage on her own after that. It'd be better this way.

It was impossible, I knew, but something like guilt swept over me at the thought of leaving her at last night's words, harsher now in the morning light and the brutal sobriety.

I stared at the rolling hills that surrounded the cottage, swimming in yellow-and-violet wildflowers, with a tireless litany playing through my head, Don't come. Don't come. Don't come.

She came. Dressed in a blush-pink cotton dress, with her curls loose and a leather rucksack dangling from her back. I hoped she had taken that silver dress with her. Gods knew the image of her in that dress would haunt me for a long, long time. The generous curve of her breasts. The slope of her hips. Her soft thighs peering through the gauzy material. And those sparkly hairpins—how I'd imagined myself picking them off one by one until her silver curls unraveled and I could freely brush my hands through them.

Nepheli passed under the little archway of the door, cold and distant, and clearly exhausted, her under-eyes bearing the purple stains of a sleepless night. "I'm surprised you waited," she clipped, cheeks flushed.

"Give me that," I said as I went to take the bag from her.

She slipped away, hissing under her breath, "I'm perfectly capable of carrying my own bag."

"Just hand it over, Nepheli."

"Why?"

Your back will hurt. "You'll slow us down."

A muscle twitched in her jaw. "Fine," she bit out, shoving the bag against my chest.

"Well, good morning," Walder emerged at the door, still sleep-ruffled in his long blue robe.

Agathe fluttered her wings at his side, smiling in melancholy for our imminent separation. "Are you leaving already?"

"We have a long day ahead," I said, avoiding Walder's attentive gaze. I wasn't mad at him—not that I could feel truly, deeply mad—but I still had this sense of disappointment gnawing at me for the way he acted last night, pushing Nepheli and me together. I knew his intentions were honorable. I knew that in his eternal, mystifying to us mortals state, he couldn't fully fathom the damage I could do to a woman like her. But he should have listened to me. He should not care about me as much as he did.

Nepheli smiled politely. "Thank you, Walder, for everything. And Agathe, gods, I'm so grateful for the dresses and the conversation. It meant a lot to me."

Agathe flew to hug Nepheli around the neck. "I'm going to visit you in Elora, yes?"

Nepheli sniffed, tears sparkling in her eyes. "I would love that. I would love that very much."

Walder conjured between his fingers a little vermillion box of matches and a miniature terracotta jug—or so the objects appeared to be—and offered them to me. "Take these. Fire and dinner for tonight. Oh—" A paper bag full of muffins popped up in his other hand. "And something for the road. Did you take enough water?"

"Yes. Thank you," I said with a curt nod as I crammed everything into Nepheli's bag, pleased to find a blanket rolled at the top—and silver gauze glittering beneath.

Walder pulled me in for an embrace. "Don't be a stranger, you filthy bastard," he laughed his deep, clear-water laugh, then added quietly, only for my ears, "Don't mess this up. She could be the one to cure you."

I said nothing, and there we went, past the trellis, the rosebushes, and the little metal chairs. Then, Agathe called out, "Hey, Nepheli! Don't forget!" She made a little arch with her tiny hands, and pink dust peppered the early morning fog. "Shine."

I had no idea what Agathe meant, but in the meager, mist-dazed light, Nepheli was indeed shining.

◆◆◆

It was growing close to sundown when the dandelion-paved crest of the hill emerged in the distance, the sky above heavy and melodramatic, all grand sweeps of yellow and grey. The little cave below the hill was where I counted on us resting tonight since Isa's manor was still too far away to reach before dusk.

Nepheli and I hadn't exchanged a single word all day—in fact, she was doing an excellent job acting as though I didn't exist at all—and the usual noises of the forest seemed exaggerated amid our thorny silence. The pixies giggling, the sprites murmuring, the birds chirping and—

I lunged forward, grabbed Nepheli around the waist, and clamped a hand down on her mouth. "Don't make a sound," I whispered in her ear as I dragged her behind the thick trunk of a tree. I twisted her around, pressed her back up against it, and covered her with my entire body.

She stared up at me with huge eyes, growling threats and curses against my palm.

"Shh, Nepheli, please."

The noises neared. Clawed paws rustling on the underbrush and furs swishing amid the bushes. Sounds that had been carved indelibly inside my brain ever since one of them attacked me the last time I went through the forest, about a year ago. They jumped out of the shadows one by one and made the ground beneath us quake. Massive black-grey silhouettes with furs drenched in blood from a recent killing and lethal jaws snapping in the air. The wolves. The demons of the Dragonfly.

Thankfully, Nepheli couldn't see them from her vantage point, but she must have felt their sinister energy because she finally stopped trying to wriggle out of my arms. Her face went as white as a knuckle. Her chest caved into mine on a ragged breath. I pressed her further against the tree, wishing I could wrap her in my body and have my skin be her armor.

I inched my head to the side, just enough to see what was happening. The seven giant wolves communicated something to each other with low, almost sighing sounds. They paused to determine their direction, twisting their monstrous heads left and right, and once they decided to continue southwest, they howled skyward and lunged over a tall cluster of brambles, disappearing in the shadowy landscape of the forest as fast as they'd emerged from it.

I kept Nepheli in my arms for a bit longer. To make sure, I told myself. Not to savor the warmth of her body, the scent of her skin, or the silky sensation of her hair. And definitely not to wallow in the sugary pressure of her perfect, full breasts on my lower sternum or her hips grinding against my—

"Apollo?" she hissed under my palm.

I shook myself into clarity and removed my hand from her mouth.

Nepheli heaved on a breath. "Are they gone?"

I only managed a nod, knowing that my voice would betray me as much as my body.

"Then can you maybe let go of me?" she snarled. "You're crushing me."

"Sorry," I rasped, lurching backward. "I was just trying to cover your scent."

She brought a hand to the lace-trimmed neckline of her dress to quell her pounding heart. "Gods, what kind of creatures were they? They sounded like wolves."

"Shifter demons, actually."

"Demons?"

"Might want to keep it down, Little Butterfly. They're not far gone."

Her face turned into a jarring bright red. "Why does the Dragonfly have demons?"

"Because the magic here attracts them. They prey on magical creatures, and the Dragonfly has plenty. Magic makes the soul tastier, I suppose."

"The way you say it so nonchalantly," she growled as she anxiously checked over her shoulder again, chewing at the corner of her lip. "Apollo, maybe we should head back to Walder's. It's getting really dark and—"

"Hey," I breathed out. She veered and met my gaze, looking pale and shaky. If this were seven years ago, I would take her face in my hands, brush back the tender curls off her forehead, and tell her that she shouldn't worry about anything. I was here, and I would never let anything bad happen to her. But all I was able to say now—all I was able to mean—was a dispassionate little, "We're fine."

Nepheli's eyes turned from fearful to contemptuous in the matter of an afterthought. "What can you do against a forest demon, anyway? Undead or not, you're still just a man."

"I've killed a demon before," I gritted out. "I don't carry these blades just for show, you know."

She visibly stiffened. "Oh, goody. He's a killer too."

Do not engage. Do not— "Better than the pathetic little boys you distract yourself with in Elora."

What was wrong with me, damn it? Why couldn't I just stay quiet and move along? I kept losing control of my tongue, my eyes, my hands. It was driving me insane. She was driving me insane.

"These men at least know how to properly behave around a woman," she bristled.

"Darling, these boys don't have the slightest idea of what a woman actually needs."

She licked her lips. "And you do?"

I wanted to lick her lips too. "I know you know I do."

Nepheli blushed but didn't falter. She merely glared at me, dauntless—and a little murderous.

I could just take a step now, and she would be up against that tree again. I could fall down on my knees, hike up her skirts, and show her just how much I knew what she needed.

What would she taste like? Starlight? Hope? Terrible decisions?

Suddenly, cold, sharp droplets of rain speckled my flushed skin. I glanced up at the silvered sky, darker by the second, the boughs standing out tender and grey against the black clouds. With a raucous thunder, the whole world flashed and tore in two, and a cataclysm descended upon us.

"Fuck," I growled, ushering Nepheli back under the tree's canopy.

"I told you it was going to rain!" she squealed.

Her hair was already drenched from the manic downpour, and the hem of her dress was soaking in the fresh mud. So I did the sensible thing: I slipped one arm under her knees and one around her waist, scooped her up, and made a run for it.

"Let me down!" she cried, kicking her feet in the air. "I can run on my own, you heathen!"

"Will you stop that?" I shouted over the howling of the wind, my boots squelching on the sodden underbrush as I sprinted straight toward the hill. "Damn it, Nepheli! Stop squirming! I'm going to drop you!"

She raised a hand to protect her face from the brutal lashes of the rain and coughed against the collar of my shirt. "Apollo, I swear if I get a lung infection and die—"

"You'll haunt me for eternity. I know, darling. I know."

◆◆◆

The cave was as cold and dark as I remembered, the yawning mouth of some forest beast. Moss-covered stone, half-unburied minerals poking through the slouching ceiling, and abrasive, dusty ground.

The moment I let Nepheli down to her feet, she attacked me with her fists, pounding them on my chest hard enough to bruise us both. "If you pull something like this again—"

I caught her wrists and pushed her off me. "You're seriously mad at me for getting you out of the rain as fast as I could?"

She whipped back the drenched strands of her hair and thundered me with her silvery ire. "I'm mad at you. Full stop."

Well, what's new?

I could not breathe without making this woman mad. Yet, for some reason, I thought it was a good idea to open my mouth again and make it worse. "We're in the middle of an enchanted forest with literal demons running around in circles. If you want to survive, you'll have to learn to cooperate with me, whether you like me or not. So stop acting like a petulant child just because I hurt your little feelings last night—"

"Do not talk about last night!"

"Why not?"

"Because there's nothing to talk about!" she seethed, her voice echoing around the stone walls. She squared her shoulders and looked me in the eye. Proud. Fierce. "I was careless with my wine, and you were careless with your words. End of story."

But I hadn't been careless with my words. I had been careless with my body. I had been careless in the way I danced with her, touched her, stared at her mouth like it was land and I was drowning.

I loosened a breath as I scrubbed a hand down my dripping face. "It's better for you like this and you know it."

She lifted her chin. A droplet of rain glided down her jaw and found rest just above the swell of her breasts. Suddenly, I was parched, and the only thing I wanted was that single drop of water.

"I haven't given you the right to decide what is better for me," she hissed.

"I merely—"

"No!" she yelled, and this time her voice broke a little. "I'm not interested in what you have to say anymore. I will not be your fool again."

I am the fool, Nepheli. I am. Not you.

But, obviously, I couldn't say that. So I turned away, shrugged the bag off my shoulders, and fumbled for Walder's matches. I pushed the wet tips of my hair off my eyes and managed to spark one up despite the tremor in my hands. Instantly, a small bonfire emerged on the cavern floor, smokeless and odorless but as warm and comforting as the real thing.

Nepheli gasped and crouched over it with rounded, magic-starved eyes. The pitter-patter of her sodden clothes and hair didn't disturb the fire at all, so she leaned further down and teased the flames with her fingertips, fearless in her curiosity. "It's warm, but it doesn't burn," she whispered, her eyes gleaming in the orange light.

I hauled the fluffy blanket out of the bag and sprawled it in front of our magical bonfire before checking if Agathe had packed another day dress for Nepheli. Thankfully, she had. I pulled out the purple cotton garment and tossed it to her. "Change out of your clothes and sit down to warm yourself up."

Nepheli glared at me, the silent warning stark in her eyes: Do not tell me what to do.

"Hurry up," I pressed. "You're going to get sick."

"And you care?" she huffed.

"I don't want you as my personal ghost," I retorted, flashing her a wide, mocking grin. "Since you're so keen on staying with me for eternity, evidently."

"You're an insufferable—" she began, but was interrupted by a violent sneeze.

"Get out of this dress before I get you out of it," I snarled.

Nepheli gritted her teeth. "Turn around."

A phantom feeling—something between frustration and nervousness—prickled from the inside of my skin. I faced the other way, and for a few moments, there was only the rustle of clothes slipping up and down the curves of her body. My mind conjured images of my hands slipping up and down her body too, her skin on my skin with nothing else between us. My hands on her breasts, her hands in my hair, her calves on my shoulders as I pounded—

No. Just no.

For the love of the sky, I was a grown man. Where had my self-control gone, damn it?

I tried to distract myself by naming the magical minerals that peered like treasure through the rocky ceiling while I restlessly tapped on the leather strap of my baldric. Citrallite, pink kreel, blue lopronite, green—

She cleared her throat. "I'm decent now."

I veered to find her perched on the blanket in front of the fire, running her fingers through her wet hair. Her nose was pink from the cold, and her lips looked swollen and red, as if she'd just been kissed. Her eyes darted up. She frowned. "Why are you staring at me?"

I chose my most dry, unimpressed tone. "You think very highly of yourself, don't you, darling?"

"Apparently you do too, since you can't seem to take your eyes off of me," she bit back, her cheeks heated.

Since there was no way I could answer that without making things worse than they already were, I focused on getting myself out of my cape and baldric before settling down next to her with a long exhale. "Are you hungry? Walder made us dinner."

"Very kind of him, but I'm still full from the muffins. I want to get warm first," she said, her fingers moving deftly through her hair to weave a long, silver braid. She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. "You don't have to wait for me if you're hungry."

I folded my arms behind my head and leaned back on the hunched wall. "I'm fine."

With a tiny groan, she outstretched her legs too, and as the hem of her dress slid up her calves, I noticed that the skin right above her ankles had gone red and almost raw from the friction with her leather boots. At the sight of it, something sank in my chest, like the anxious sensation of falling through a dream. "Why didn't you tell me your boots were hurting you? We could have stopped."

"I didn't want to slow us down," she clipped, her jaw tight.

Gods, I was such a bastard. "If something hurts you, you tell me. You don't have to power through the pain."

"And what would you have done?" she snorted.

"Carried you, for one."

She glared at me. "I don't want your hands anywhere near me."

Of course, she didn't. I was so remarkably good at being a heartless wanker that this woman would prefer to have her skin scraped raw than spend a second in my arms.

All of a sudden, she froze next to me, her round lips popping open in surprise. "Look," she whispered as she leaned forward to lower her palm on the dusty patch of ground between the blanket and the bonfire. She brushed and brushed, and there it was: a heart carved into the stone floor, boasting two sets of crookedly scribbled initials in the middle. "Lovers," she whispered dreamily.

"Idiots," I argued.

Nepheli rolled her eyes. "Of course you would say that. You've clearly never fallen in love with anyone but yourself in your entire life."

Oh, the irony was just too good.

If I could feel resentment now, I would be choking on it. I would be compelled to confess how I'd once known love as intimately as the heart I had lost. I'd known all its colors and contours. I'd known it like a pilgrim knew his god—and a vicious, hungry, merciless god it was. The kind that craved blood. The kind that demanded sacrifice. Because if I looked back at love now, all I would see were the pieces of myself I had lost to it.

"And you have, darling?" I mocked, my tongue sharp and bitter. "With someone who isn't fictional, I mean?"

Nepheli scowled. "If you must know, I almost got engaged a year ago."

My brows shot straight up to my hairline. "You were?"

"Are you seriously so surprised that someone wanted to marry me?" she scoffed, pushing furiously the end of her braid off her shoulder.

"I'm not surprised someone wanted to marry you. I'm surprised they let you go."

Fuck, I shouldn't have said that. Why couldn't I keep my mouth shut every time I talked to this woman? There was a plan, a script. I was supposed to be acting like the complete and utter wanker I was, not blurting out sweet nothings in the semi-darkness like a lovesick adolescent.

"He didn't let me go," Nepheli said, her expression a dichotomy between offense and incredulity. "I did."

Do not say that this makes more sense. Say something stupid. "A little heartbreaker, aren't you, darling?"

She smiled coyly. "Feeling fortunate that you don't have a heart for me to break, Apollo?"

"I'm the luckiest bastard in the world."

"For not having a heart?"

"For being immune."

"To love?"

"To you. I'm perfectly immune to you," I said a little absently, fighting the urge to take that unruly curl that had fallen over her eyes between my fingertips.

Nepheli seemed distracted too, but managed a haughty little, "Otherwise you would have been half in love with me already, right?"

I smirked. "Confidence suits you, Little Butterfly."

She sighed, her head lolling back. "Agathe said that I have magic inside me. Because of the stardust. I'm just trying to figure out what this new magical Nepheli ought to look like."

As she said it, her hair and skin gleamed pure silver in the firelight. Ever since I was a boy, I've been besotted with the sky and its many, outlandish mysteries. And now, here I was, looking at a real, breathing star, desperate not to yield to her light.

It was our mortal destiny. We looked at the stars, but the stars did not look at us. And so she sat there, more precious than anything I'd ever known, utterly oblivious to what she was doing to me.

"She looks pretty good to me," I said in the most noncommittal tone I could manage, covering the look of want in my face with a mask of boredom.

Her eyes hardened, but it wasn't anger, or resentment, or even spite. It was more raw, more vulnerable, a sentiment I didn't have the emotional depth to fully comprehend. "She looks silly to you, Apollo," she said. "She looks like someone you don't even respect."

How powerful she was, really. She was so strong that she didn't feel the need to pretend that I hadn't hurt her last night but instead admitted to it openly, in the most human way possible. If I'd had a speck of that dignity in me seven years ago, I wouldn't be in this situation right now, and Nepheli would still be kingdoms away, safe and warm, and probably much happier.

Tell her that. Tell her everything, my slow-dying sense of morality screamed into the hollow of where my heart was supposed to be.

But reason won me in the end. What's the point?

I pretended to yawn and lowered my eyes to the flames, looking no more engaged than someone who was about to nod off in the middle of a conversation."So what happened? With your almost fiancé."

Nepheli blew out a breath, disappointed at me but unsurprised. "He left Elora to attend university. He wanted me to follow him. That's why he proposed. He was so sure I was going to accept that he had already talked to the High Priestess. I couldn't leave an offering at the Temple for weeks without getting dirty looks."

"Why didn't you accept?"

She shrugged. "I couldn't leave the Shop. So we just… grew apart. I'm not even sure where he ended up. Kartha most likely," she considered, and I wasn't sure if the wistful look on her face was because she missed him or because she regretted not going with him. Either way, I hated it, and I had no idea that I was in a position to hate anymore. Perhaps hatred was a thing of the soul and not of the heart—dark and assiduous, and gut-wrenching. But wasn't love the same? So maybe my soul had nothing to do with it. Maybe Walder was right. Maybe she could change me. Maybe I was already changed. Maybe she was my only chance at a cure, a chance I shouldn't miss. Or maybe I had become so good at imitating an actual human being that I couldn't recognize how hollow I still was.

"Do you still care for him?" I asked casually.

She didn't even have to think about it. "I will always care for him."

I could have sworn a jolt of pain went through me—a sort of stabbing sensation in the middle of my chest. "So you regret not leaving with him," I said, not much of a question in my voice.

She answered anyway, a hesitant whisper, "I don't know."

A pang of disappointment jabbed at my ribs, but I managed to keep my face straight. "Do you want to find him?"

Her brows furrowed. "What?"

"If you're still in love with him, I can help you find him."

"You'd do that?" she gasped.

If there is one person who deserves all the happiness in the world, it's you. "Well, I do owe you," I said matter-of-factly, shrugging my shoulders. "Shop's damages and all that."

"And all that," she echoed, a little bewildered.

"Although, you're probably better off."

Her face hardened, but there was something pleased in it too, as though she was secretly glad that I didn't want her to find her ex-lover. "You don't know that I am better off without Ryker. You don't even know him."

"It has nothing to do with him," I blurted out. "The problem is with love."

Nepheli's fingers slid to her pretty butterfly pendant. She did that a lot in a self-soothing manner every time she was nervous or needed some courage, and I'd grown fond of the look of her twirling it between her fingers. You'd think that after being alone for so long, it would be hard for me to find someone else's unconscious habits and nervous ticks charming. But it wasn't hard. I was starved for such tender human things. I was so hungry, I could just lay back now and feast for hours, for days, forever, at her every mannerism, every slight movement of her body.

I was not lonely. Not like Nepheli was. But I was still very much alone. And I was starting to get sick of it.

"What's so problematic about love?" she argued. "With the right person, I imagine it's wonderful."

"Only the beginnings are wonderful. Love…" I sighed and closed my eyes for a moment. A constellation of memories rocketed past the orbit of my thoughts. Smiles and kisses and promises twirled kaleidoscopically behind my closed eyelids. Shouts and accusations and a thousand broken how-could-you bleeding out from invisible wounds. "Love dies screaming. Ask me. I would know."

Before she could say anything, I stood up and strode off, craving the dank, pitch-black night, and to disappear into something as empty and lightless as I was.

"Apollo," Nepheli called after me, but I didn't respond.

I stepped outside. Dragonflies glittered in the leaves of the trees and in the tall ferns and in the basil bushes, their wings sparkling like the distant lights of a city. The underbrush was still soggy from the rain, and the air smelled of petrichor and pine. And the night? The night was neither empty nor lightless, after all.

It was hazy with stars, stars, stars.

Suddenly, I was twelve years old again, tucked into my childhood bed and gazing at the glistening spatter of stars across my ceiling as I waited for them to twinkle me to sleep. But sleep would not come, so I would tiptoe my way to my telescope, thrilled and impatient, my hand too small for the focuser and my eye too eager for the eyepiece. And there the stars would be—slipped off my ceiling and into the sky, free in their true, glorious forms.

◆◆◆

When I got back inside, Nepheli was lying on her side with her hands between her knees. Serene, with her eyes shut.

I sat down next to her. "Nepheli?" I whispered. "Are you asleep?" She didn't budge. As delicately as I could, I took a lock that had escaped her braid between my fingertips and brushed it aside. It was soft. As soft as her heart. "You want to know a secret?" I said quietly, the words choking me on their way out. "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean any of it. I don't think you're silly. I think you're lovely. I think you're smart and funny and interesting, and terribly kind. You're lovely. And I am so horribly, thoroughly unlovely that I don't know what to do with myself around you. You've no idea how much I wish I was just a normal man who walked into a random Shop one day and met this brilliant woman. He thought she was clever and pretty, and way too good for him. But he was young and impulsive, and asked her out on a date anyway, thinking that nothing too bad could come out of it. And somehow, the stars aligned, and she said yes. And they went on that date, and they talked and laughed and kissed until their lips were numb, and thanked the fates for their good luck—oh, how lucky they were to have found each other. It's outrageous, isn't it? How can someone's life change so irrevocably in the span of a single day? And you know that nothing will ever be the same for them from now on. Because now they've learned each other's faces. Now they've held hands. Now they've whispered promises in the dark. Now they've dreamt next to each other, woke up next to each other." I tried to swallow, but something tremendous was stuck in my throat, and the next words were hardly more than a whisper. "But I am not a normal man. I'm not someone who can experience all this loveliness again. What I'm trying to say, Nepheli… is that I'm sorry. For what I said. For making you feel like that. I'm sorry for the mess. I'm sorry for barging into your life only to disarray it so thoughtlessly. But I am mostly sorry that I can't feel sorry. Truly, deeply sorry. Because you deserve that. Gods know you deserve it."

I didn't feel unburdened by my confession. In fact, by the time I lay down next to her and started drifting off to sleep, I felt hollower than ever.