Artemis laid her hand on the girl’s head. Her expression was hard, unmoving, as she stood for an agonising moment, then stepped away. And, before all of our eyes, Callisto’s shuddering shoulders seemed to cave in, her body contorting. I saw her hands fly up to her face, but her fingernails were lengthening into curved claws. Her arms bristled with dark fur and her sobs became growls, any words she could have grasped at to defend herself lost to her forever. Where there had been a desperate girl, there was now an animal, a beast of the forest, a bear like the one who had taken pity on me when I
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