Page 11 of The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities

We walked in silence for a few moments, Apollo guiding the way ahead while I waded in and out of the intricately woven route, trying to keep up with him, until he suddenly asked, “Did you buy any mystery boxes when the other Shops in Elora closed down?”

“Well, my parents bought a mystery box a while back. But I sold it about seven months ago,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him in suspicion.

“Great,” he wryly muttered. “Just my type of luck.”

Why would the Prince of Thaloria be so interested in some old mystery boxes? His entire kingdom—a kingdom he would one day rule—was a giant mystery box, as far as I knew.

“What are you looking for anyway?” I asked. “You were looking for something in my Shop too.”

“None of your damn business,” Apollo growled. “Now, can you walk a little faster? Bandits usually attack after dusk.”

On reflex, I squeezed the parasol in my fist.

I knew the North was magically superior because this was where the Celestials—the gods, titans, and spirits—had been born when Time was still young. I knew that the magic here was so dense that if you paid close attention, you could see it in the air at night. You could breathe it in and make it a part of you. I knew that the Queen of Thaloria was an intelligent, generous, and loving ruler—which made it nearly impossible to believe that Apollo had come out of her—and that the King was kind and stoic, although not of a royal bloodline himself. Queen Eloise, in fact, was the first Queen in the entire Asteria Realm to have married a commoner. But no paper or book had ever written anything aboutbanditsskulking in the Dragonfly Forest.

I gave Apollo an incredulous look. “I don’t get why the North is so dangerous. I thought you were a prosperous kingdom.”

“We are,” he said, matter-of-factly. “We’re the wealthiest kingdom in the Realm. Our people are very happy.”

“If they are sohappy,then why do you have thieves lurking in the woods?” I prodded.

He halted his striding and turned to look at me, his handsome face serious for once. “You’re joking, right? There are bad people everywhere, Nepheli. There is no such thing as a perfect world. Elora has just as much crime.”

I sidestepped him, skipping over a thick, broken log. “I suppose I wouldn’t know.”

“What do you mean you wouldn’t know? You’ve lived your entire life there, no?”

“I’ve never really ventured very far from Diagonia Alley,” I admitted. “My family’s apartment is right across the street from the Shop.”

I’d been born in that apartment. I’d lived my whole life there, a life comfortable in its repetition, and in the certainty of always knowing what was to come. The morning ritual: tea and raisin muffins and a book on the small kitchen table. A short walk to the Shop. Then back home in the afternoon, when the apartment was lush with sunlight and silence, I would trudge to the back balcony, a basket in hand, and hang the laundry on the metal drying rack, impatient to get it done and get my hands on a book again, something to read while I fixed myself dinner over my old, wood-burning stove.

And now Apollo was judging this life,mylife, his face etched with disdain and disapproval. “Gods, you really are living the most miserable little life, aren’t you?”

Abruptly, I swiveled on my heel, and his hard chest smacked right into mine. I pushed him back with the tip of my parasol. “Just because my life doesn’t look like yours, it doesn’t mean that it’s miserable or unimportant,” I declared. “I happen to enjoy leading a small life. Not everybody is dreaming of having some grand adventure.”

Apollo let out a long breath. “You know what, darling? I don’t care enough to argue about this. So let’s just keep going.”

Working my jaw, I veered around, and my boot caught on another fallen branch.

Apollo’s rough hand came up lightning fast to close around my arm. “Watch where you’re going,” he snarled, pulling me straight. “If you break your legs—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” I huffed, wrenching my arm from his hold. “You’re going to leave me for dead.”

???

I was exhausted. I didn’t think I’d ever been more exhausted for the entire twenty-three years of my life. Even the summer I met Ryker—my almost-fiancé—that we’d spent prancing all over Diagonia Alley from bookshops to tea houses to late-night plays at the theater only to end up back at his townhouse, kissing until our bodies ached, was still less anxious and exerting than two hours of trekking through the woods with Apollo, whose mood alternated between easy charm and disdainful side glances.

And still not a single,I’m sorry, or more appropriately,Forgive me for all the trouble I brought you, Nepheli. Surely, I’ll reimburse you for the damages in your Shop. Don’t worry. It’ll all be okay.

Was simple courtesy too much to ask?

“What are you muttering about?” Apollo grumbled.

I shut my mouth. I was so used to sharing my every thought with the Shop that I didn’t even realize I was talking aloud.

I glared at his back, about to give him a piece of my mind, when I noticed a bramble of common field berries nestled amid the sedges, and my empty stomach argued that I could always pick a fight later on.

“Oh, thank the gods,” I groaned. “I’m starving.”

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