Page 40 of The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities

I tried to recall all those endless articles about the sickness, always speculating and dissecting it to pieces, yet unable to find its root. It finally dawned on me that this was our way of making the truth more palatable to us. We blamed a fantastical sickness when, in reality, we as humans made a conscious choice every day not to see the magic in the world.

I met Agathe’s gaze, my heart thrumming in my ears. “Maybe a few weavers could help Elora become magical again. We once loved magic. So maybe we can learn to love it again. We can change,” I said desperately, clutching the pendant in my fist so hard that the skin of my palm started to burn. “People can change.”

Agathe’s lilac eyes softened. “You can’t force people to change, Nepheli. You can only show them kindness and acceptance and understanding. And if they wish to change, then they will do it in their own way. I’m more than four centuries old, and if there is one thing I know, it is this: If you always try to force people into seeing the world the way you do, you will never love anybody. You will only love the pieces of yourself you find in others.”

I flinched at her words, despite their gentle delivery.

Was this what I was doing? Was I only seeking to find myself in other people? Was this the reason I was so hopelessly alone? I called to mind what Apollo had said to me earlier,You’re so good that I’m afraid you’re no good at all.Were my boundaries really so austere that I had left no space in my life for something different and no way to see the world through somebody else’s eyes?

The thought suffocated me. I felt humbled and embarrassed. My face grew so hot that I wanted to fling the window open and stick my head out into the chilly night. “I didn’t realize how selfishly I’ve been thinking all this time…” I muttered. “Everyone in Elora does seem pretty happy with how things are.”

“But you don’t,” Agathe observed.

“I’m…” I hesitated. “Well…”

“You’re a Stareater.”

Not this again.

I groaned, exhausted. “I do not eat stars. I accidentally swallowed some stardust when I was little.”

Agathe grinned conspiratorially. “In the North, we don’t believe in accidents,” she claimed. “Every human here has a bit of magic inside them. It’s why they always return to the North. The magic calls them home. Perhaps it called you too. Perhaps it was destiny that brought you here, after all.”

“An inconsiderate brute—that’s what brought me here,” I deadpanned.

Agathe flew to me, her wings beating so rapidly behind her back that a sweet-smelling breeze wafted into the room. She placed her small hand on my collarbone and permeated me with her magic. A warm, fluid sensation overtook me. Something jolted inside me in response, and I flinched back from shock. But Agathe didn’t budge. She pressed closer, her brows threading in concentration, then raising in surprise. “Do you know where the stardust came from?”

I considered it for a moment, raking up my memories. “My parents bought it from a common stardust collector. But I have no idea where the star fell.”

Agathe narrowed her eyes at me, pondering. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

At once, jolly excitement sparked in her face. “A star fell twenty-seven years ago just outside Thaloria, and the merchants went absolutely bonkers for it. Stardust collectors came from all over the Realm to get a little piece of it. I bet the stardust your parents bought came from this very star.”

“Really?”

“Certainly,” she reassured, nodding to herself. “No star has fallen since. I remember when it fell distinctly because Queen Eloise gave birth to Apollo that night.”

Out of everything—and there wasa lot—this little piece of information bemused me the most, and I staggered with a gasp. “What?”

Agathe gave me an all-knowing, self-amused look. “Destiny, Nepheli, weaves people’s lives together, whether they believe in it or not. You say a mistake brought you here butmistakeis just another word for fate. You see, sometimes the stars work to separate people, and other times they conspire to unite them.”

I snorted. “I don’t think the stars are rooting for me and Apollo, Agathe.”

“Well, this star is certainly rooting foryou,” she argued. “It lives vicariously through you, doesn’t it?”

It was true that celestial objects couldn’t really die. The stardust should have killed me, but it changed me instead. It had nested somewhere deep inside me and became a part of me, a new vital organ. But to say that it was living through me the same way magic lived through people was something else entirely. It would mean that I myself was… well,magic.

Agathe said something I didn’t catch in the bustle of my thoughts. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Has it manifested, yet?” she repeated. “Your magic, I mean.”

“I don’t have any magic.” She shot me a chiding look, and I amended quickly, “Okay,technically, I have but I can’t do anything with it.”

“Have you tried to do magic and failed?” she prodded.

“No,” I admitted grudgingly. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

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