Page 14 of The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities

The satyr lifted his head and scanned Apollo from head to toe. His large brown eyes behind his round spectacles were keen with suspicion. “You look familiar,” he said, his voice raw and harsh like sandpaper. “You’ve been here before, young man?”

“No, we’re travelers from the East,” Apollo curtly replied.

The satyr stretched up his neck, trying to get a good look at me as I stayed semi-hidden behind Apollo’s massive frame. “You’re here to drink?”

“We’re here to sleep,” said Apollo, reaching into the inside pocket of his cape. “One room, please.”

A gasp ripped from my chest. “You mean two rooms.”

He ignored me. “One room.”

“Two rooms,” I urged, tugging at his shirtsleeve.

Apollo turned to me, the muscles of his jaw flexing. “One room,my darling wife, because we do not want to be separated. Do we?” he snapped, biting at each word.

The man leaning on the wall next to the reception with a large cup of ale in his hand and a dreadfully menacing look on his face snorted with laughter. “If she gives you too much trouble, I’m happy to take her off your hands. That hair will sell well at the market,” he said, ogling at my hair as if it were made from pure gold.

His little friend joined in, raking his eyes over my body with a look that made me more uncomfortable than falling from the sky. “The rest of her will sell fine too.”

Madness blazed through my bloodstream. I lurched forward, clutching my parasol in my fist. “What did you just say to me?”

Apollo grabbed me around the waist and hauled me back. “My wife is not for sale,” he said, his voice insidiously cold. He drew back his cape with a flourish and showcased his weapons in some silent but clear warning. “Now do you want to continue this argument outside or do you want to apologize to her?”

The two men shared a look, jaws clenched and cheeks bright. The tall one nodded and grunted out a disingenuous, “Forgive us, my lady.”

“Walk away,” Apollo demanded, and there they went. Heturned to the satyr with a scowl. “One. Room.”

???

I was praying to the gods that the squeaking sound I kept hearing as we climbed up the stairs to our room was my boots and not a family of rats, while Apollo next to me did what he apparently did best—act like a colossal prick.

“You just couldn’t keep your mouth shut, huh?” he snarled the moment we reached the first floor. “What were you going to do? Duel him with your umbrella?”

“Parasol,” I hissed. “And as sure as bees make honey, I will duel with my parasol if I have to and not let some drunk brute talk to me the way he did. Something you would be able to understand if you weren’t a heartless, inconsiderate, self-absorbed brute yourself!”

Apollo thinned his lips. “Are you done?”

I squared my shoulders. “Why?”

“We’re here,” he clipped, tipping his chin at the door behind my back.

I stepped aside and let him twist the rusty key into the bottle-shaped keyhole. The door creaked open, and we were welcomed by screeching hardwood floors and a moldy, wet-wood sort of smell.

A foggy window across, a broken light above, a small, unlit hearth to our right, and—

“Oh no. No. No.No.What is this? What is this tiny, single bed? This can hardly fit a grown person, let alone two!” I cried in unprecedented dismay, gaping at the wooden skeleton with its leaf-thin mattress and the single, rock-hard pillow.

“It’s aninn.What did you expect? It’s pleasant enough,” Apollo claimed as he began stripping off his weapons.

“Pleasant? This place is more suitable for trolls than human beings. And I amnotsleeping in this bed with you,” I declared, crossing my arms over my chest.

His baldric clanged on the iron bench that was propped against the foot of the bed. I was such a nervous wreck that the sound startled me, something that Apollo—the horrid brute—found very amusing. “You’re welcome to sleep on the floor, darling,” he drawled, grinning wide.

“Oryou can do the gentlemanly thing and take the floor for yourself,” I suggested.

“Place has rats,” Apollo announced casually. “So that would be a no.”

“Why not? Has your rodent kind exiled you as well?” I mocked.

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