Apollo could not take back the gift—it was an adamantine law that no immortal could undo what they or another immortal had done81—so, in his fury, he spat into Cassandra’s mouth just as it was rounding for a repetition of the word “No.” The spit was a curse. It meant that Cassandra’s prophecies would always go unheeded. No matter how accurately she foretold the future, no one would ever believe her. It was her fate to be ignored.
