Page 83 of The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities

27

Nepheli

Abrilliant symphony swept everyone up in a spinning, graceful dance, the room unrolling in hypnotic vistas: drunken constellations, exuberant colors, and wisps of magic twinkling in the air. And beyond all this starry excitement stood Apollo, devastatingly handsome and dangerously heartbreaking.

He wore a loose night-blue shirt with matching formal trousers and a half cape that slinked a little rakishly over one of his powerful shoulders, as though someone had tried to undress him but had been suddenly interrupted. I knew this was the fashion of the North, but I was still mad with jealousy for this supposed someone who’d dared to put their hands on him.

Locks of dark hair fell over his eyes, yet I could still discern them perfectly, even in the hazy distance—wild and heart-rending, they took me in and didn’t let me out.

Fire crackled within me, and he knew it. He knew exactly what he was doing to me, staring like that. His lips, after all, were on the verge of smiling.

I was fairly certain that a man had approached and invited Thea to dance because I felt her warm hand on my forearm and heard her feather-soft voice asking, “Is it okay if I dance for a little bit?” But I could only nod in response, lost in that blazing daydream Apollo’s eyes shared with mine.

Then—bam. A hard shoulder collided with mine, and the butterflies the Queen herself had bespoke on my dress startled and flew away, scattering straight up to the ceiling before exploding in tiny balls of glitter.

The room snapped into focus—the masterfully strung music, the brilliant garments, the chatter and laughter—and the tall, lean man next to me who was murmuring his apologies.

I blinked. And I blinked again.

Pure, utter shock bestirred me so hard that I lurched back a step.

“Ryker?” I gasped as he swayed to steady me with an arm around my waist.

It seemed impossible, fanciful, inconceivable, and yet… there he was. Ryker, with his big brown eyes and curly dark hair, pouty lips, and crooked nose, staring at me open-mouthed, just like he had that very first day we’d met: two strangers hurtling down Diagonia Alley, busy looking elsewhere and inevitably colliding with each other.

It had not been love at first sight. In fact, I could not recall when it had become love at all. When had we crossed that invisible but formidable line of friendship and courtesy to meaningful smiles and stolen kisses in the dark? The lack of remembrance as he stood before me now, like some dream creature that’d sneaked out of my subconscious, bothered me. Although I had such a hard time remembering the things that had brought us together, I already knew that I would not forget my days with Apollo so easily. My affections would only be nurtured in his absence, in all the things left unsaid, in all the daily scenes left unshared. This would be a love thriving in the distance.

“What—When—How?” Ryker stammered, incoherent in his astonishment.

I shoved off his arms, blurting out, “What are you doing here? I thought you were East.”

“I was,” he muttered, rubbing at his forehead the way he always did in moments of awkwardness or tension. “I’m just serving an apprenticeship with Lord Dunver.” He gestured toward an older man in silver-grey garments, currently chatting with the King and Queen across the room. Isa was among them, in a gorgeous purple gown. She caught my eyes and waved at me, smiling brightly.

I managed to smile and wave back despite my frightfully discombobulated head, and tried to regather my reeling thoughts. If Ryker was here in the North, did that mean…

“You’re learningmagic?” I demanded, unable to hide the shock in my voice.

Ryker had always been disinterested in magic. There had been nothing I’d hated more than the way he would dismiss me whenever I tried to talk with him about it.“Can we please discuss this later, dear?”he would suggest with his glacial gaze and veiled indifference, and I would nod in compliance, feeling irrelevant and small in his presence, and watch him—him, who cared about all the important things in the world—tolerate me while I chased after my daydreams.

“Politics, Nepheli,” Ryker clarified, a little offended at my suggestion in that too-serious tone of his.

I nodded a bit spasmodically. “Right.Right.Yes, I remember you saying something about that.”

Ryker inched closer, his cheeks flushed and his voice urgent.“Nepheli, for the love of the sky, what are you doing here?”

“She’s with me.” Apollo’s deep, dark voice sounded behind me, and before I could even turn to face him, he flung an arm around my shoulders and pinned me to his side.

I’d been confident that nothing could ever feel more uncomfortable than falling from the sky, or being mentally tormented by evil faeries, or having a group of bandits attack you the same day you almost died from dragonfly fever, but evidently, I’d been gravely mistaken.Thiswas worse.

Ryker’s face turned a disconcerting shade of red, and Ι didn’t have to look in the gold-framed mirror on the wall next to us to know I looked no better. “Prince Apollo. Welcome back. It’s an honor to meet you,” he said graciously, bowing at the waist.

Apollo stared him down with his unwavering nonchalance. “And you are?”

Ryker offered his hand. “Ryker Leonos, Your Highness.”

To my utter dismay, Apollo didn’t shake it. He only removed his hand from me, his eyes narrowing into twin slits of darkness. “Ah, I see,” he said with a noncommittal lilt in his voice. “The fiancé. Well, that’s a ratherfortunateturn of events, isn’t it, Little Butterfly?”

“I—”

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