Chapter 8 The Unexpected Scent

• The rain came down in sheets thick enough to blur the edges of the world, and Thalia's ruined umbrella did nothing but flap uselessly overhead as she hurried along the slick sidewalk, cursing under her breath at the storm that had ambushed the entire town without warning.
• She did not see the uneven paving stone until her foot had already caught on it.
• The fall happened fast, the particular helpless suddenness of a body losing its balance entirely, and Thalia had just enough time to register the sickening lurch of gravity before a pair of hands closed around her, stopping her descent so completely and so gently that for a moment she wondered if she'd imagined the fall entirely.