I don’t sulk.

Let’s just get that straight.

I observe.

I strategize.

I glower thoughtfully from a distance.

So when I sat on a mossy rock overlooking the clearing while Pneumeros and Hephaestus laughed over some glowing hunk of metal like it was the most charming thing in the universe… I was not sulking.

I was... assessing.

Apollo flopped down next to me, lounging like he’d been summoned by drama itself.

“You’re sulking,” he said cheerfully.

“Not.”

“Are.”

“Not,” I said, sharper this time.

He leaned back on his elbows, hair catching the sunlight like it had nothing better to do. “Okay. So you’re not sulking. You’re just sitting in a very tragic position with your jaw clenched and your soul screaming, ‘Why isn’t he looking at me like that?’”

I turned to glare at him. “You’re very annoying.”

“I know. I’m also very right.”

He had that look—mischievous and knowing, like he’d seen a thousand crushes bloom and burn across centuries and could spot one at fifty paces.

“I’m not jealous,” I muttered.

He grinned. “Did I say jealous?”

“You’re thinking it.”

“You’re thinking it.”

I hated him.

Except I didn’t.

Because the worst part was—I could talk to him. Not like Hermes, who’d turn it into a joke, or Dionysus, who’d flirt me into a coma. Apollo could be a jester—but he could also be terrifyingly perceptive when he decided to use his brain instead of his abs.

“…I’ve known Pneumeros since we were kids,” I said finally, voice low.

“Go on,” he said, as if I were confessing to a priest instead of a solar menace.

“He was the only one who understood me. Or tried to. Everyone else—my mom, the other demigods—they looked at me like I was some unstable celestial bomb waiting to go off.”

“Hot,” Apollo said absently. “But lonely.”

I ignored him.

“And then he started… noticing other people.”

I didn’t mean to sound bitter.

But I did.

Apollo tilted his head. “You mean Dionysus?”

“No. I mean… yes. Also Hephaestus. I mean, look at him! He’s soft, he’s good, he makes magical weapons and compliments Pneumeros like it’s nothing—like it’s easy.”

“And you want that,” Apollo said, suddenly serious.

I looked away. “I don’t know what I want.”

“Liar,” he said gently.

Silence.

The forge crackled in the distance. Pneumeros laughed again, soft and rare and unguarded.

My chest hurt.

Apollo nudged me with his knee. “You don’t have to figure it all out at once. But you do have to admit something to yourself.”

“What?”

“You don’t just care about him.”

I swallowed hard.

“I know,” I said.

He leaned in, voice low. “And you’re not just scared of losing him. You’re scared of sharing him.”

That hit too close. I clenched my fists.

“…He deserves to be happy,” I said.

“And maybe,” Apollo added, softer now, “you could be part of that happiness. If you let yourself be.”

I didn’t answer.

But I didn’t deny it, either.

Apollo smiled. “For the record? He still looks at you like you hung the stars.”

My breath caught.

I looked down at the camp again.

Pneumeros was turning toward us now, wiping sweat from his brow, scanning the tree line.

His eyes found mine.

He smiled.

Small. Genuine. For me.

And just for a moment—I forgot how to breathe.