Apollo pretended not to watch the city outside, but every nerve in him twisted at the suggestion of movement.
The wind had stopped entirely. The flames from their torch guttered upward without the least disturbance: no draft, no movement of air, just the slow consumption of wax and wick.
He waited for the others to doze, then stepped outside. The street was brighter than it should have been, the glow from the central tower, perhaps, or a trick of the stone reflecting starlight.
Apollo walked in a slow spiral, testing the distance to the next ring, counting his own footsteps against the perfect echo returning from the stone.
At the fourth intersection, he stopped. There, nailed to the door of a squat, windowless building, was a single strip of paper.
The language was not the city's; it was written in a hand he recognized, though it had been years since he'd seen it outside of dreams. It read: "The world is made of walls and luck. You are running out of both."
