Page 46 of The Gods Forbid

The way they reacted to the inch of kindness in my voice, even though I’d evaded their question, felt like a shot to the chest. They looked like I’d just cured every ounce of pain they’d ever felt.

“Oh, you should be!” They exclaimed, bouncing back on their heels and smoothing their hands down their burnt orange apron.

The ounce of kindness I felt towards this stranger dimmed considerably when they fought me tooth and nail about paying for the produce. Eventually, they caved and let me pay, but not without a fight that made me feel exhausted.

Enough so that I decided I’d make do with whatever Persy still had stocked just to get the fuck out of there. My millionth poor decision of the day came when my eyes caught on a wash of color on my way out of the main marketplace.

I should have continued on my merry way, working my way out of the towering, lush gardens that made up the main square, decorated with a mass of bright flowers that somehow thrived in the dim light Prometheus was subject to.

But no, no I just had to stop at a stand that displayed enough colors of oil paint it looked like they’d robbed the rainbow right of out of Iris’s hands.

Mistake number one was not turning around when the young man—no more than eighteen—almost fainted when he saw me. Once he recovered, he busied himself with jumping up and down on his feet excitedly, almost shaking himself out of his bright clothes, somehow both perfectly fitting his personality yet contrasting the dark tone of his hair and sharp features. “Oh, fuck, you’re Lord Apollo,” he practically screamed.

“Sebastian, please,” I said, half intending the plea to address the volume of his tone as well. I ran my hand over a few tubes of paint, a mix of brands that were owned by humans.

“What can I help you with?” There we go, that was a normal tone.

I scanned the paint and supplies, looking for a few specific purples and yellows that I needed for an image that was scraping against the back of my brain, begging to be let out. “Purple with a cooler undertone that pulls gray when mixed with white. Neutral yellow. Not too golden, not too bright.”

Within seconds, I had two tubes of paint in my hands. Perfect matches for what I described. My head snapped up to the young man. “You have quite the eye for color.”

His complexion colored, his hand running nervously over his shaved, dark brown hair. “I don’t really know how to explain it, I just understand it.”

“Understood,” I said. “Good skill. You should be proud.”

“You know, Persy said the same thing to me. She was the one that suggested I try my hand at art. It helps me manage how chaotic my head can feel.” There was such wonder in his tone, every ounce of it deserved.

“I assume she was right?” I said, engaging even though I said I wouldn’t.

The young man nodded his head quickly. “Very much so.”

“You paint?” There were many other mediums, but with his love of color, I imagined it would be his preferred.

“Watercolor mostly.” He looked so happy I’d asked him a question, no matter how short, I briefly understood why Persy found value in being nice.

I nodded, humming in the back of my throat as I reached down for a detail brush I’d need to appropriately capture the little white lines that cut across storm clouds.

“I really want to get into some other mediums, but it’s hard to learn. Persy is asking a friend she has if I can apprentice for him when I leave Prometheus, and she swears he’s nice but I—”

“I’ll do it.” Sweet love of Apollo. There must be something in the water here.

But there was no going back now, not with the unbridled joy spreading across this kid’s face. The realization of his age made me pull back, wondering how someone who couldn’t be more than eighteen had ended up here.

I didn’t get the chance to inquire about it, because he was literally jumping up and down with happiness. “Really?”

I tried to hide the fact that I was grinding my molars together. “Yes,” I said slowly.

“For the love of Zeus, I feel like I’m going to pass out,” he said, fanning himself. Okay, so he was Greek. He gripped the edge of the display, the whites of his knuckles showing. “No, wait—”

“Let’s just take a breath.” The last thing I needed was to have to heal this kid. “How about we start with your name?”

He listened, taking in a deep breath. “Penn.”

The brush broke in my hand in a sharp snap. Penn looked down at my hand in shock, scrambling over the lip of his stand to grab me another one, like he’d done something wrong to me. “Just wait,” I said, holding out a hand. “Let’s hold on.”

Penn straightened, looking all too chastised. Dammit.

“How about this,” I said carefully. It wasn’t his fault that his name reminded me of someone or if that reminder made the dim sun in Prometheus surge with light. “Where do normally paint?”