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“Don’t feel bad. It was funny.”
“You dying would not be funny.”
“It would be, because I would make a lot of jokes on my way out. Like you did when you thought you were going to die.”
“It was my duty to lighten the mood,” Daisy says crisply. “It’s not as if I could just sit there on the sofa and die. I had to be carried upstairs half the time so that Hercules and I could—” She drops her voice to a whisper. “Fuck.”
I laugh out loud, but it catches in my throat and tapers off.
“Sometimes, I feel…very bad. When it’s happening. And Apollo?—”
“Apollo feels worse.”
“How do you know that?”
Daisy opens her eyes and gives me an incredulous look. “Because I saw him at the gala. So did Hercules. He almost went to help. That’s how bad he looked. And you looked gorgeous and fine.”
“Well.” My hand is cold around my bottle of water. “It’s usually not like that. We’re usually fine if we…have regular contact.”
“Like fucking?”
“Like holding hands,” I say, too loud, drawing a glance from Julien and August. “Or sitting close together.”
My cousin clears her throat, stretches herself out of her graceful lean, and holds out her hand.
There’s no fighting this. We’ll be back in front of the camera soon, and there’s no doubt in my mind that August will take some photos of us admiring the ring.
I take my hand out from behind my back and put it in Daisy’s.
Her eyes widen at the sight of the moonstone. A smile flashes onto her face. She tilts my hand in one direction, then the other, watching how the moonstone twinkles. It really does look like a tiny piece of starlight was tugged out of the sky and set down in this ring just for me. The warmth I feel when I look at it is so strong that I almost want to look away and keep looking away. I don’t know whether it’s painful because I wish Apollo had gotten down on one knee and asked me to marry him or because, deep down, it doesn’t matter that he didn’t.
“I love this on you,” she says, glancing at me so I can see the sincerity in her eyes. “Do you love it?”
“I really do.” I swallow past another lump in my throat. That sounds like I’m admitting that I’m in love with Apollo, which is not going to happen. “It didn’t even have to be resized.”
“Lucky,” she murmurs, without much conviction. Privately, I agree. I don’t think luck had anything to do with it.
“You know…” Daisy gives my hand a light squeeze and lets go. “I’m not morally opposed to you and Apollo fucking if that’s what you both want to do.”
“Daisy.”
“Sorry.” She glances all around, then leans an inch closer. “I’m not opposed to you making love if that’s what you both?—”
I make a gagging sound. “Please never say that again.”
“Sorry. I’m not opposed to him putting—unless it’s weirdly conical, in which case?—”
I gag again, more theatrically.
“Please tell me if you got engaged because of your weird curse.”
“It’s not a curse,” I say automatically.
“Didn’t you say it came out of nowhere? How long has this been going on?”
“Since we were little. Basically since Apollo and Ares came into the family.”
“Since the arrow, you mean?”
