The leaves went very still.
"You're not supposed to say that," she said, and her voice had gone quiet.
"Why not?'
"Because it makes it harder," she said. "To be... angry at you."
"Are you angry at me?" Rex said.
She was quiet for a moment. "I don't know what I am."
'The dream manipulation did the trick, huh...?'
'She's conflicted with her mind.'
"That's fair." Rex looked at her with an expression that had no pressure in it, just presence. "You don't have to know right now."
Nerith pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, the posture of someone who had run out of protection and was working with what they had left.
The white was entirely gone from the leaves. The amber had settled into something less like distress and more like the complicated warmth of someone sitting next to a fire they weren't sure they should be sitting next to.
"I'm sorry," she said. "For almost saying it to Apollo..."
"You didn't say it," Rex said.
