“No!”She grabbed at him, caught his hand.She was tugging at him, wrapping her arms around his waist, setting her dear, thick-skulled head on his chest.“Apollo, what are you doing?”
“I can stop it.I’ll be back.”He took a deep breath of mostly clear air before stepping inside the inferno once more, his name on Sybil’s lips ripping through the sky and echoing in his ears.
The fire licked at him, tasting him, but he brushed it aside, found the center of the blaze—hot and mindless, it would sweep up everything in its path.
No, it wouldn’t.He stepped right into it.He played with it for a moment because it was sniffing at his skin, recognizing a fellow creature.
“Naughty beast,” he whispered before opening his mouth and inhaling the flames.
He gathered them up, wove them like straw into golden strands he twisted into a ball.He made them harmless, a candle’s tiny, flickering flame.
Then they were gone.
And he was standing in a hollowed-out pile of ash.Melted bottles made clumps on the floor, and potion vapors sizzled in the air.The charred beams creaked above him.Time to bolt.
He rushed out into the alley, found Sybil hovering in the shadows, hidden.But she saw him at the same time, his name on her lips as her bare feet danced against the old cobblestones.He went to her, gathered her up as she flung her body at him, clutched him close.He didn’t want to let her go.Smoke clung thick to her, and he wanted to plop her in a bath and scrub the smell from her skin, from his skin too, then make love to her until they smelled like each other.
“You’re safe, you’re safe!”She wiggled and kicked until he released her, then she checked every limb and inch of skin he possessed.“You’re entirely unscathed!What happened.No, tell me later.Right now…” Her gaze flickered to the end of the alley.“The men who abducted me… they’re here.”
“What?”
There, at the back of the crowd in the alley, a group of three men, and behind them, a carriage with an open door.
The fire in Apollo flared high.He was going to burn them into nothing.
“Wait!”Sybil grabbed his wrist.“Don’t go.Don’t go.I have to go.”
“You?”He growled.“Youwill stay right here.”
“No, no!Listen.”She bobbed up on tiptoe and cradled his face in both hands.“Please listen.I have to let them catch me.I have to let Stone think he’s in charge.And then, from the inside?—”
“Inside of a fucking dungeon, Sybil.One created to keep alchemists from escaping.”
She grinned.“We escaped once.We could do it again.You’ll come for me.If I don’t escape first.”
His hands were on her waist without his permission, and he pulled her roughly against him.Anyone could see.He didn’t care.
“But I won’t need to escape.I’ll convince him to let me into the forge.And once there, I’ll figure something out.I’ll trick him somehow, convince him?—”
“He’s mad!”
“He’ll keep coming after me.If I do not go.And I refuse to live my life running.I won’t let him set fire to everything I love.”
“Heset the fire.”Realization like a bucket of refuse poured right on top of his head.“Stone did it.To get you to come out.”
“That’s what I think.Why else would his men be waiting so conveniently nearby?”
“How did they know where you are?”
“That doesn’t matter.But I have to go with them and prove to them I can’t do it.Then he’ll leave me alone.”
“It’ll be better if I kill him.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“You severely underestimate me.”
She kissed him, hard and somehow also soft, and the kiss shot another realization through him.He’d always had a soul, and she’d branded it long ago.Truths he’d never have seen on his own seemed so obvious with her smiling at him.
