Page 23 of The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities

The realization struck me like a rock in the head.

This wasnota dream.

“Apollo!” I yelped and pulled back so violently that I fell off the bed and tumbled to the floor.

“What?” he gasped, springing up with half-opened eyes to fumble for his sword. “What happened? What’s going on?”

“Your…” I panted, grabbing onto the edge of the mattress to lift myself up. “Your…”

Not only was he wearing his white linen undershorts, which did nothing to cover him to begin with,but thesizeof it too was absolutely preposterous.

Apollo followed the path of my eyes and groaned in utter exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Oh for fuck’s sake, Nepheli,” he cursed as he tossed his sword back on the bench. “I thought someone got in here!”

“Just…” I snatched the pillow and threw it at him. “Cover it.”

The bastard ducked his head, and the thing flew right over him. “If you’d stop looking at it, maybe it’d go away. It likes your attention, darling,” he mocked, and he had the audacity toadjusthimself in front of me before grabbing his trousers from the bench.

Smoldering with frustration, I took a dramatic, no-nonsense tone, striding up to him. “From now on and for the remainder of our journey, clothing isnotoptional. Am I making myself clear?”

Apollo, unbothered and unimpressed, cocked his head to the side and raked his eyes over my body. “That goes both ways.”

I glanced down at my nightdress to find the thin cotton almost translucent in the bright light of dawn.

Before I could even begin to express my mortification, Apollo slid past me and stormed out of the room.

I whined under my breath. “I hate this man.”

???

The closer we traveled to the city, the more conspicuous magic seemed to grow.

Pixies and sprites coiled amongst the branches of the trees, shuffling and rustling, chirping and giggling, their soaring bodies like tiny rainbow clouds hailing iridescent dust over the Dragonfly.

A dramatic change befell the scenery as well; the birches gave in to a dense web of shagbark trees, which explained how Apollo had been so able to pinpoint our location yesterday by simply scanning our environs, and the foliage was lusher and brighter, as if the soil here was drunk on magic instead of water. The boughs leaned down to grasp each other, forming arches of fairytale green over our heads with only a few ribbons of light to poke through the intricate mesh. Berry brambles flanked our trail, and tiny, pixie houses sprouted amid the basil bushes and the wildflowers.

Thankfully, breakfast at the inn wasn’t nearly as dreadful as dinner (they had even served tea, and honestly, there was nothing a decent cup of tea couldn’t fix), so I had plenty of energy now to study every magical detail the forest was willing to reveal to me. I couldn’t wait to tell the Shop about the things I’d seen here, to hear its cauldron bubble with enthusiasm, the bells jingling, and the floors creaking melodically in response—the soothing sounds of home.

Apollo, on the other hand, looked far from enthusiastic. His lips were sewn into a tight line, and his eyes were keen on the trail. He had the look of a hunter or a warrior rather than a prince, with his big hands ready for a fight and his tall, muscular body drawn in anticipation.

“Where are we going to stay tonight?” I asked, assuming that his apparent consternation was because of some unexpected bump in the plan.

“At a friend’s house,” he said without taking his eyes off the path. “Tomorrow we’ll have to camp, and the day after we’ll stay at my cousin’s. The manor’s location does add about an hour to our journey, but at least you’ll get some proper rest.”

“Okay,” I breathed out. “So if you have it all planned out, then why do you look so worried?”

“I’m not worried. I’m alert. We’ll have to cross Fairyland soon.”

At once, delirious, merry-gold excitement fizzed through my bloodstream. “Really?” I exclaimed, clapping my hands together. “We’re going to see the fairies?”

Apollo glared at me. “Can you not be so excited to see these horrible beasts?”

“I know fairies can be a little playful and even cunning at times, but they’re hardlybeasts,” I remarked, leaning on my parasol to skip over a large moss-covered rock.

“You’re thinking about the fairies of the East,” Apollo noted. “Fairies have a much larger influence here. The Dragonfly is their predominant territory, and I don’t know what you’ve read in your little books, but fairies here will do pretty much anything to keep you in their domain.”

“When you say to keep you…” I trailed off.

“To play with you.”

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