Page 63 of The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities

Apollo froze at once, his eyes wide and feral. In his condition, it shouldn’t be possible to feel mad, truly, incandescently mad. But the white-hot fury in his face was as pure and raw as any emotion known to man, so much so that it frightened me. For a moment, the only movement around us was the flounder of my heart.Thud. Thud. Thud. Then, with a slow, calculated bend of his knees, Apollo dropped the dagger on the ground, and the deadly little thing glinted like treasure amid the underbrush.

Within seconds, the other two grabbed Apollo around the shoulders and forced his hands behind his back. Every muscle in his body strained, wanting to resist but holding back for my sake.

A brutal pang of shame went through me, even more excruciating than my despair. This was all my fault. I had allowed judgment and fear to overtake me once again, and this was my punishment. Why couldn’t I have stayed and listened to what Apollo had to say instead of running away? Why couldn’t I show some faith to someone other than myself, for once?

“You want to take me for ransom?” Apollo growled. “Take me. Do as you want with me. But let’s keep this between us. She isn’t worth anything.”

I tried to console myself with the fact that Apollo was unbreakable and that they couldn’t really hurt him. He was strong and skilled and deviously smart. He would find a way to escape them. He would have already escaped them if it hadn’t been for me. He was going to be okay. We were going to be—

The man gripped my hip from behind with his free hand as he buried his face in the curve of my outstretched neck. Instinct begged me to recoil. But I was immobile from fear, the dread pumping in my veins with a violence. “She’s worth something to you, clearly.”

Apollo thrashed. “Take your fucking hands off her—”

One of them punched Apollo in the face, and a rivulet of blood poured from his nose. “Apollo!” I screamed, lurching forward.

The blade scraped my throat. “You move when I tell you,” the bandit snarled in my ear.

Apollo spat the blood from his mouth and curled back his lips into a wild, scarlet sneer. “You deserve what’s coming to you.”

The man laughed. “What’s coming to us, boy?”

A sudden rustle sounded from behind the wall of shrubbery, then a familiar, relentless gallop tore through the glade.

Eiran lunged out of the shadows and landed right between us, massive and imperious, and as jarring as the night. He reared on his hind legs, his long sword glinting in the dark like a beacon as he declared in his deep, haunting voice, “Death.”

I seized the opportunity to swing my elbow upward against my captor’s face. He reeled back with a curse, cradling his broken nose just as Eiran wielded his sword… and decapitated him.

A soundless scream left me as the man’s head tumbled on the forest bed before me, spattering the wildflowers with gore, the blood looking thick and black like oil in the night. I wanted to close my eyes, but I did not seem able to look away, not as Eiran galloped after the other two and took their heads as well with only one sharp swipe of his sword.

“Nepheli!”

With a gasp, I swiveled just as Apollo reached me, and our bodies collided.

He gathered me into his arms, and I let him. A sudden, deafening silence fell over the world as I pressed my face on his chest and he wrapped his arms around my neck. For a second, I couldn’t think or feel anything else. Only us, shaking into each other’s arms.

“Are you okay?” he panted as he slipped his fingers through my hair and tilted back my head to examine my throat. “Did he hurt you?”

My mouth went dry. “No,” I rasped, curling my fingers into his shirt to steady myself. His chest was frantic. “Gods, Apollo, you’re breathing so fast.”

His hand in my hair tightened as he dropped his forehead on mine. “I can’t remember the last time I felt this scared.”

“I thought you couldn’t feel.”

“I thought I couldn’t feel too.”

Eiran cleared his throat, and we tore apart at once, stumbling in opposite directions.

“Are you injured, Lady Nepheli?” the centaur asked in his solemn manner.

I shook my head, willing my eyes away from the splatter of blood that glistened on his naked torso. There were a lot of things I was anxious to tell the Shop about my journey. Witnessing decapitation, however, was not one of them.

Eiran caught my nauseated expression as easily as he had slaughtered these men. “Forgive me for the brutality, Lady Nepheli. But there are certain offenses the Dragonfly does not forgive,” he said, and with these words, something changed about the air. The night became cooler, almost bluer, unfolding into a swift, wintertime breeze that wafted over us like a silky curtain. I could have sworn I heard whispers rising all around me, not the mischievous pixies or the insouciant sprites, but as if the trees were talking, rustling something of great importance to each other. A nearly invisible sheet of magic swept over the severed bodies, and one by one, they misted through the air. Their corporeal forms turned into nothing more but clusters of golden specks, twinkling in the desolate stillness of the night.

I gasped in shock, burying my mouth in my palms. I had thought that this eerie golden mist that enveloped the entire Dragonfly was the trail of some night creature. I would have never imagined something as dark and morbid as dead souls.

“I will escort you back to the manor,” Eiran said, his long, dark hair dancing like the branches of a willow in the speckled wind.

“Thank you,” Apollo exhaled in relief. “I owe you.”

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